Petra Thorgren

Petra Thorgren came to S12 in August 2013 to work for a period of 18 days. She was working on an exhibition to be shown in Glass Factory in Boda, Sweden, later the same year. The title of her project and her exhibition was “Searching the Archives for a Place called Glasriket”.  As a starting point for the project she used among other things material found in the archives of some of the former Glass Factories located in “Glasriket” (The Crystal Kingdom), things like old advertisements and articles written about the activities in the area as well as photos from the many different activities and products.

The project was a continuation of earlier work Thorgren had done and which dealt with romanticizing and historiography. She was occupied with questions like What makes a place and if a place is a state of mind rather than a mark on a map, how far might it extend?

Thorgren frequently uses found objects and mixed material in her work. In this project she attempted to build a small scale kingdom, an installation, a landscape made of glass, similar to the aesthetics found in archives. Thorgren used her time in S12 to experiment with the creation of objects made in different glass techniques, bringing them with her back to the “The Crystal Kingdom” where they became part of her exhibition in the Glass Factory.

See the exhibition “Searching the archives” at  http://www.pust.se and http://www.pust.se/bilder/arkiv_glasriket_tryck_small.pdf

Since being AiR in 2013 she has exhibited mostly in Stockholm where she lives. In 2017 she participated in the International Triennial in Kaunas, Lithuania. Her current work is focusing on kiln cast reliefs and wall pieces.