KRAFT is pleased to welcome you to the exhibition Invited (7): BRANN by Irene Nordli & Jenny Mäki.

This year's Invited exhibition, titled BRANN (FIRE), is the seventh in the series, where KRAFT has invited craft artist Irene Nordli, who is based in Norway. She, in turn, invited Swedish architect Jenny Mäki, who lives and primarily works in Sweden. The exhibition marks their first collaboration, focusing on their shared fascination with and use of fire. The Invited series is curated by Kira van Hoegee, director at KRAFT.

Few things in the world are more complex and paradoxical than fire. In its simplest form, fire is a chemical process – a visual and sensory result of energy being released as light and heat when a material reacts with oxygen. In this chemical process lies both the seed of life and the potential for destruction and obliteration. Fire can keep life itself going – ignite the spark of societies, civilizations, and rituals. Blaze up, set minds and hearts aflame. But the same fire can turn into tongues of flame that devour both nature and culture, laying cities and landscapes waste in ashes. Sometimes, a fire can only be extinguished by igniting another.

How does one balance harnessing the power of fire while safeguarding against its destructive potential? In Invited (7): BRANN (FIRE) by Irene Nordli (NO) and Jenny Mäki (SE), their fascination with fire and its inherent, often contradictory qualities and possibilities is united. Mäki uses the Japanese technique yagisugi, where wood is burned to protect and give it a long life. This accentuates the structure and composition of the wood, in contrast to the violent treatment the technique involves. She then connects the wood into pillars that become black, floating trunks in a foreign forest – a landscape that bears witnesss to the catastrophe or a promise of a new beginning. In the sensuous, ambigous forest, Mäki´s black tree trunks meet Nordli´s ceramic sculptures – large, organice forms of clay in a range from black clay to white porcelain. Often hollow, as a hint ofs pace for sprouting and growth, a life emerging from the ashes. In the world of ceramic, too, the power and caprice of fire are essential – since ancient times, humans have built holes and chambers to fire sculptures and utilitarian items from clay, as in the Japanese technique anagama.

In Invited (7): BRANN, one steps into an exhibition where both senses and mind are activated and encounter the different stages of fire. Contemplative works of delicate soot meet robust forms hardened by heat – from the darkest dark to the bright and colorful. In both Mäki´s and Nordli´s practices, fire is central. By wandering through Mäki´s and Nordli´s alchemistic landscape, one is enveloped by paradoxes and contrasts, an interplay of creation and obliteration. In mythology and religion, it is often told that it is the fiery tongue of fire that will ultimately bring an end to the world aqs we know it. But in the wake of fire´s inferno, one may perhaps see more clearlyt he seed of new beginnings – a sprout growing, a glowing egg, material that, against all odds, have been strengthened beyond themselves in encountering the mighty power of fire.

Irene Nordli (b. 1967, Norway) graduated from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design in 1995 and was a professor at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Department of Art and Craft, until 2019. She has exhibited at Kunsthall Grenland in Porsgrunn, Galleri Format, Lillehammer Art Museum, and Akershus Art Center, among others. In 2024, she participated in the Officine Saffi Award 5 in Milan, Italy. Nordli has completed many public art projects, such as Don't be a Stranger at Asker Culture House and Månelyst at Halden Prison (KORO). Her works have been acquired by Sørlandets Art Museum, Nordenfjeldske Museum of Decorative Arts, the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, KODE, Lillehammer Art Museum, and Drammen Museum.

Jenny Mäki (b. 1976, Sweden) is an architect primarily working in Scandinavia. She graduated from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg in 2005 and TU Delft in the Netherlands. She is often invited as a guest critic and lecturer at architecture institutions in Sweden and Norway and has been employed at Chalmers, NTNU, AHO, NMBU, and KORO. Mäki has a number of awarded architectural competitions to her name, including first place at Skövde New Crematorium SE in 2021, Honourable Mention at Wetland Museum Mia Fetsund NO in 2020, CA-runner-up at Creating a Biodiversity Corridor in Montreal in 2018, second place in the open competition at Parc des Quatre Rivières Quebec CA in 2017, European 11 Norway Honourable Mention, and European 10 Norway Runner-up.