"We don't know what a body is because a body is always in excess of our knowing it" says feminist and philosopher Elizabeth Grosz in an interview from 2021 and points out how absurdly complex it is to understand and move with a body that is constantly changing. Partly because of the interventions we inflict on the body ourselves, but also because of the environmental influences we cannot control. Laura Guiseppi's practice moves between the natural and the artificial, between pop and the deeply tragic, and she points with precise strokes to the close inseparable relationship between human and their environment.

Two oversized butterflies in coloured plastic look more like grotesque retainers than the beautiful invertebrates I caught with fishing net in the summer days of my childhood. The work series Retainer bodies moves between the beautiful and the repulsive. From innocent sunny days to painful hours in the dentist's chair and a sudden awareness of the large amounts of plastic I had installed in my mouth as a child. Guiseppi is concerned with how we correct our bodies and that the regulation of body parts and body functions has a back side that we may only partially understand or be aware of.

In the exhibition, this (lack of) awareness is, among other things, stretched between two metal bars. The work Retainer bodies (sun) is both a palate impression, preserved butterfly, plastic packaging and sunset. At once equally an abstract and easily legible sculptural form that tries to embrace the experience of powerlessness many are filled with when landscapes are sterilized and species disappear - knowing that we bear the majority of the responsibility for our actions ourselves, often born out of desire and vanity. A simple glazed ceramic fan thus appears both as a consumer object and as a helpless attempt to cool down a heated planet, and in the video The Cycle – an advertisement the sun is literally stuck on the horizon. A parody of a commercial for our climate cynicism, which is so grossly exaggerated and clichéd it's almost sickening.

By working with ambiguous imprints, both the body's traces in nature, but also the impact and mark of the environment on us, Guiseppi contributes with a nuanced look at our complicated relationship with nature and naturalness. The fact that most of the works are made of plastic only emphasizes the experience of solastalgia; an unsettling feeling of homesickness while still at home and a constantly piercing sense of powerlessness that our being in the world also means its finality as we know it.

- Text by Vera Østrup

The artist wishes to thank Hasse Bruun & Mathias Savery, Morten Lyhne, and Vera Østrup

Solastalgia is an exhibition about being homesick in one's own home, feeling discomfort in one's own body and a growing alienation from the environment while adjusting and transforming them both to fit the perfectly balanced image.

"We don't know what a body is because a body is always in excess of our knowing it" says feminist and philosopher Elizabeth Grosz in an interview from 2021 and points out how absurdly complex it is to understand and move with a body that is constantly changing. Partly because of the interventions we inflict on the body ourselves, but also because of the environmental influences we cannot control. Laura Guiseppi's practice moves between the natural and the artificial, between pop and the deeply tragic, and she points with precise strokes to the close inseparable relationship between human and their environment.

Two oversized butterflies in coloured plastic look more like grotesque retainers than the beautiful invertebrates I caught with fishing net in the summer days of my childhood. The work series Retainer bodies moves between the beautiful and the repulsive. From innocent sunny days to painful hours in the dentist's chair and a sudden awareness of the large amounts of plastic I had installed in my mouth as a child. Guiseppi is concerned with how we correct our bodies and that the regulation of body parts and body functions has a back side that we may only partially understand or be aware of.

In the exhibition, this (lack of) awareness is, among other things, stretched between two metal bars. The work Retainer bodies (sun) is both a palate impression, preserved butterfly, plastic packaging and sunset. At once equally an abstract and easily legible sculptural form that tries to embrace the experience of powerlessness many are filled with when landscapes are sterilized and species disappear - knowing that we bear the majority of the responsibility for our actions ourselves, often born out of desire and vanity. A simple glazed ceramic fan thus appears both as a consumer object and as a helpless attempt to cool down a heated planet, and in the video The Cycle – an advertisement the sun is literally stuck on the horizon. A parody of a commercial for our climate cynicism, which is so grossly exaggerated and clichéd it's almost sickening.

By working with ambiguous imprints, both the body's traces in nature, but also the impact and mark of the environment on us, Guiseppi contributes with a nuanced look at our complicated relationship with nature and naturalness. The fact that most of the works are made of plastic only emphasizes the experience of solastalgia; an unsettling feeling of homesickness while still at home and a constantly piercing sense of powerlessness that our being in the world also means its finality as we know it.

- Text by Vera Østrup

Laura Guiseppi (1989, DK/TT) holds a MFA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2021).

Recent exhibitions include: CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art (Middelfart), Loggia (Munich), Kunsthal Aarhus (Aarhus), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), and Lagune Ouest (Copenhagen).

Guiseppi received the Blix Prize for her work Underbelly in 2021. Her works are represented in private and public collections such as The Danish Arts Foundation and CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art.

All photos by Malle Madsen

The artist wishes to thank Hasse Bruun & Mathias Savery, Morten Lyhne, and Vera Østrup

The exhibition is generously supported by