Birgitta Silfverhielm, Room and Inner Room 1994/1996. Photo Wanås Konst.
Birgitta Silfverhielm
Birgitta Silfverhielm
(Born 1960, works in Stockholm)
Room 1994
Diabase
160x160x150 cm
Inner room, 1996
Diabase
140 x 75 x 25 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Birgitta Silfverhielm’s two works were shown in connection with an exhibition in 1996, which presented six Nordic artists who work in diabase. The first work, Room from 1994, was a part of her final project at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. A large block of diabase was split in two, and the image of the artist’s own body was hollowed out of the stone so that she could fit into it. In connection with her graduate exhibition in 1995, Silfverhielm carried out the performance OM. She closed herself in between the six-ton boulders, which were set on steel rollers so they could be pushed together. For 20 minutes, she pushed the halves of the heavy stone away, until she could get out of her claustrophobic hiding place. The following year, Silfverhielm was awarded the stone fellowship from Östra Göinge municipality, thereby allowing her to create Inner Room, which depicts the form of the hollowed-out space in the boulder.