© Isabella Chydenius, Installation view, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Installation view, 2023

“I’m currently embracing being basic. I’ve always felt like I don’t fit in, but doesn’t everyone?”

Name

Isabella Chydenius

Profession

Artist

Website

isabellachydenius.com

© Isabella Chydenius, Photography by Emma Ball-Greene
© Isabella Chydenius, Photography by Emma Ball-Greene

Where are you from?

Helsinki, Finland

Your style in 3 words?

Minimal yet immersive

Your weakness? Your strength?

Caring too much – caring “too” much

What makes you different?

I’m currently embracing being basic. I’ve always felt like I don’t fit in, but doesn’t everyone? So even that’s such a basic concept. But by embracing being basic, I think I actually have a chance of learning the minimal differences that make me – me, and others special in their own tiny little peculiar ways.

© Isabella Chydenius, cinnamon bun, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, cinnamon bun, 2023

When did you decide to become an artist?

I’ve been realizing various kinds of imaginative worlds through drawing, painting, clay, legos, paper collage, furniture at home, stuff in the forest, etc, etc, etc, literally everything, since the moment I knew how to hold a pen or brush and assemble and organize things like my mind suggested, so back then it wasn’t a decision, just my organic way of communicating with the world. But in my early 20s, I tried a more normal-ish career but quickly realized I’ll always do art first, and secondly, whatever paying job I have, so after 5 years, I decided to quit that career path and come back to focusing on my art practice full-time.

Do you choose your art form, or does the form choose you?

I want to believe that I have some sort of control here but realized and accepted that I don’t.

What do you find most fascinating about the creative process?

The research phase and material experimentation, but also when work is successfully installed to be experienced.

© Isabella Chydenius, Dancing on my own, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Dancing on my own, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Murder on the dancefloor, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Murder on the Dancefloor, 2023

Someone else’s work that inspired or inspires you…

Shilpa Gupta, Kapwani Kiwanga, Mona Hatoum, Bronwyn Katz, Anselm Kiefer.

A few words about your favorite creation?

My favorite work so far is definitely Hide and Seek (2021). It’s a dimly lit closed room filled with fog, approx. 40-60m2, that has two weight-censored led light tiles sized 1,10 x 1,10 cm and 5 cm in height sunken into the floor. The floor is lifted so that there’s just one smooth surface to walk on, and the visitor doesn’t know their exact location when walking around in the room. The dimly lit room is representative of a dark night where you don’t really see or know who or what else is around. However, then you may step onto one of the weight-censored light tiles and the whole room lights up and for that moment everything becomes clear. That moment portrays the momentary feeling of joy and freedom that I’ve found in safe(r) space nightclubs. Something of a fleeting moment, but once you know where it is, you can always go look for it again.

What surprised you most about your first art shows?

How nerve-racking it is to present work to other people, especially during the openings.

© Isabella Chydenius, just let me dance, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, just let me dance, 2023

Who would you like to work with someday and why?

Shilpa Gupta or Mona Hatoum. I’m amazed how they both rework ideas of destruction to such beautifully breath-stopping experiential final pieces. And how they both embrace rawness of material in their work, something I used to do and want to find my way back to.

A new project coming up or an idea you want to work on?

I’m really interested in the middle ground between sculpture and installation. How my more sculptural work may form part of an installation and how the different particles in an installation are sculptural.

Finish the sentence „More important than my career is…“

Equality and safety for all people in this hetero-patriarchal world.

© Isabella Chydenius, Do not wash, 2022
© Isabella Chydenius, Do not wash, 2022

2023: Where are we going?

To wilder imaginations of what the world could be.

© Isabella Chydenius, Solmu:solmittu, 2022
© Isabella Chydenius, Solmu:solmittu, 2022

Do you think about time as an artist?

On a practical basis yes, philosophically, I try not to. Not too much at least.

When the going gets tough…

I roll my sleeves up and re-organize things accordingly.

Put on your future vision glasses: What direction is our generation moving in, what will our world look like in 50 years?

Either the planet has swallowed us whole while we were busy fighting the right-wingers or maybe, hopefully, we’ve found harmony (aka the right-wingers have swallowed their pride and relearnt a thing or two) and some genius has invented something that will make attacking climate change profitable so that our profit-driven leaders will find the motivation to do something about it.

© Isabella Chydenius, Never-ending video still, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Never-ending video still, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Never-ending video still, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Never-ending video still, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Never-ending video still, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Never-ending video still, 2023

What would you do if you could change the World?

Free, good, conversational, non-judgemental education for all.

What does freedom mean when it comes to art?

Social and economic access to creating. And, having tools to shush the inner critic when needed.

If the universe is everything and it’s expanding, what is it expanding into?

Infinite possibilities.

Tell us about your future plans…

I moved to Berlin in April 2022 after 16 years of living in Paris, London, Cape Town, and LA, so I’m excited to settle down and continue working in my new studio. I’m working on some exhibitions for 2023, but looking forward to new connections, collaborations, and exhibitions for 2024 and forward.

© Isabella Chydenius, Managing expectations video still, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Managing expectations video still, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Installation view - Liminal Locations photography series, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Installation view – Liminal Locations photography series, 2023

Your city’s favorite spots?

So many, but if I had to choose some, Kitten Deli, Rad and Mosto wine bars next to it, Kaktus Reloaded and as someone who grew up surrounded by the sea, basically any place with an outside terrace adjacent to a body of water, like La Maison or Ankerklause.

A book that everyone should read…

The Invisible Child (the Moomins) by Tove Jansson

Last but not least: what is your favorite Song?

Currently, Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major Prélude and
Dj Traytex remix of Nelly Furtado’s All good things come to an end.

One last statement please: „Wood or stone, gold or art?”

Wood and both

©© Isabella Chydenius, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, club corridor, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, club corridor, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Club air, 2023
© Isabella Chydenius, Club air, 2023

Your #…?

#isabellachydenius #pinksquareproject #pinkcitylightproject