Amielle Bogarve (she/they)
Amielle is a native Swede, living and working in Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Her work deals with the histories of objects, especially found ones, and how to help the discarded.
She has been active as an artist, DJ, composer and musician around Glasgow for a number of years.
Seven Portraits for Seven Musicians (2023)
The catalyst for the work was a desire to give back to the queer community which I have found here in Glasgow. Growing up in Sweden, I barely realized what an impact the total lack of these kinds of queer familial relations had on my well-being. In Glasgow, people embraced the diversity of the other. I felt free to explore and deconstruct myself, safe in the arms of the community.
As most of my queer relationships were informed or forged around music (clubs/jams/dance/etc.), I wanted to make seven of my most valued queer family members instruments. These wouldn’t be instruments in the traditional sense, rather they would be boxes (or bodies) that held objects I had come to associate with each subject – a portrait, let’s say. Each of the subjects then recorded using their instrument, without any knowledge of its contents. My hope was for each person to, through the performance and the box, reflect on what things they associate with themselves; why our relationship is significant; and what I or others might associate with them. Increasingly I have come to realize that home is not just a place for the family, but for all of the family’s things, which help them identify and construct their realities.
The recordings were where the piece finally came together. Each participant brought their own energy and style to the performance, which reflected why I had chosen them in the first place. There was a range of emotions grafted onto the reflective surfaces of each box. It was then they truly became portraits, as each box now held the actions and feelings of the subjects.
Throughout my degree, I have been interested in how to bridge the gap between audience and artist. I do not want my art to be seen or experienced as precious or untouchable, rather I want it to be an invitation for the audience to interact with it and to make art themselves. By using discarded materials (which I believe most visibly wear their histories on their sleeves) I have tried to make the art appear less dear or fragile, to make the audience come closer, to bridge the gap. The audience, in my eyes, is equal to the artist in the making process. Without an audience, art would lose half its meaning. Nowhere is this more apparent than in non-fine art contexts, such as clubs, where, for example, the DJ requires the audience as much as the audience requires the DJ. There is communication there, unlike most gallery experiences. But it doesn’t have to be this way: galleries can make us come together too.
Gränsfall (2023)
In a recent interview, Central Saint Martins graduate and up-and-coming artist Tom Bull spoke of “how we learn through the home.” Not only are our parents teaching us throughout our childhood, but the arrangement of objects, the level of cleanliness, how often you meet for meals, how you delegate tasks, all of these things are hammered in on the daily in the home.
I have learnt my sense of aesthetic through the home. My home at home was often very cleanly and we all helped with house tasks such as vacuuming and dishwashing, but what has remained most essential to me seems to be my mother’s interest in the arrangement of objects. She was constantly on the lookout for little bits and pieces from beaches, charity shops, etc. that would go together in nice little arrangements on window sills and such. I held a sort of reverence for these objects, for their sanctity was amplified by their arrangement. My mother took great pride and care of the home, which is something I have inhereted or learnt from her. I might have even extended the concept beyond the windows and doors of my apartment, taking greater care to pick up little bits and pieces off the streets, as if they were objects carelessly dropped on the floor of my apartment. Of course, if I found something that had been dropped at home it would be my immediate instinct to pick them up, but it might not be so obvious on the streets. It reminds me of French gardener Gilles Clement who wholeheartedly believed that in order to save the planet, we would have to extend the concept of the garden to the entire world. He believed that if we were to treat the world with the same reverence and care as we do our own backgarden, then we would finally see the value in its upkeep. However, as the streets of Glasgow are a great testament of, there is still little regard for public space and trashbags, flytips, etc. are a mainstay of Glasgow’s environments.
What if we started treating trash with the same reverence as fresh goods? What if we saw the value in picking up the trash of another, instead of regarding it is tainted?
Me and my flatmates regularly go dumpster diving which really goes to show how little expiration dates mean. This same logic could apply to trash. There is value in what we disregard. Expiration is a mindset, not a truth.
This is how i regard the objects I collect. Of course, I do not pick up every little thing I see, instead I am very careful to pick up the things I know I can handle and that I know I can house. If everyone felt like this, perhaps all trash would be picked up, for I know my aesthetic and interest is simply one of a million different ones. There is no truth truer than one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
For me, these things live with me until I can find them another home. When I moved in, it appeared as though I was some sort of hoarder, but I know from experience that if I keep these things around, eventually I’ll be able to help them find a new space to inhabit. The streets can be mean, especially to the disregarded, and it it is the duty of every citydweller to try and take care of the street and those who have to wander it. We could all keep a little box of trinkets and trash for that rainy day when we feel the need to do a bit of scrapbooking. This way, we also learn to take an extra look at the life of the other, for these objects tell stories of their past lives, increasing our empathy for the capital-O Other.
In an interview with Thai artist Montien Boonma, Alfred Pawlin asks what the significance of metamorphosis (a word that occurs often in Boonma’s work) is to the artist. In response, Boonma says “an image transformed into another image in which you can see both the former character and the change.” I too try to keep the spirit of the former life intact while transforming the purpose of the object into another.
One of the most successful examples of the suggestion of movement that I have accomplished personally are these three drawers which are accompanied by suspended/placed found objects.
I believe that their success hinges on their sparseness. In fact, if they were more cluttered (a la the boxes and cases of one Joseph Cornell) I believe that they would be saturated to the point of immobility. The more you fill something with intended meaning, the more it gets cluttered, and the less the audience can actually glean using their own experience in place of yours. It is in the distance between the objects, the negative space, where we see their connections.
The distances between the objects very carefully considered just like their placement. Similarly, which objects spoke to each other is something which can be understood only after a period of acquaintance. Luckily, these are objects which I have been living with for a while (although they’ve been packed away in boxes).
Just the fact that I had kept them around made them grateful. Once they were released from captivity, they were bursting with energy, screaming to socialize. Connections became apparent almost immediately. Although, it was not until the drawers were introduced that meaning was found.
The border which the boxes provide (as seen in the title “Gränsfall” which translates directly as border case) is essential for the differentiation between the world outside and the world inside. These are four walls, not unlike a home, which designate place, belonging and thus by extension also meaning.
We all derive meaning and purpose from our families, our communities, our homes. It is here we can (or in some cases, should) completely unfurl and be vulnerable. Similarly, once the objects had found their way into the boxes and had been recognized as belonging, they were able to let their prior purpose go and give themselves completely to the complete work of art.
I believe these are (as most art) best experienced in person. Particularly because the suggestion of movement is emphasized by how fragile the items are when suspended. Any little movement, such as walking, which happens to pass them by, they wince at and spin and roll and point and try to get your attention. They really do beckon you, at least that’s the power they’ve had over me. I think this in particular is helped also by the fact that they’re fitted in drawers which typically hold items which are of importance or that we want to keep.
I wish to continue working with boxes such as these, in them I found much joy.
For The Time Being (2022)
Without a home still and an exhibition looming around the corner, the pressure came on…
We had a number of discussions around the theme for our Pipe Factory exhibition. There was a communal interest in the notion of residue, what remains of memories and events. Whenever I would think of residue, I thought of sinks.
We wash our hands of the day and down the pipe go all the residue. However, some collects, sometimes it even clogs, not unlike traumatic memories. Gotta go get some drain cleaner, some therapy.
Sometimes we hold onto things for way too long, and I felt as though this idea of myself as homeless and aimless had festered long enough. I needed to desolidify it, declog my braindrain.
Basically following the same notion as the shell piece, I decided to pulverize the sink in an effort to make it less rigid, and then wash it down the drain. Washing a sink down the sink. Sadly, like with the last piece, making the powder fine proved difficult, and the neighboring flats of the flat in which I was staying quickly got tired of the noise, which sounded like plates smashing over and over again. I thought it was quite funny that the sound bled into the other flats, proving my theory about the farsity of these four walls. They do not enclose space, rather they provide the illusion of safety and home, which seems more important than seclusion.
Because the neighbors got frustrated with the noise, I had to continue making the sink powder in the Pipe Factory (kind of fitting). However, I realized quite quickly that it was going to be impossible, at least using only a hammer. Maybe I needed a cement roller (something to investigate for future powder works). Turns out porcelain is really strong, at least strong enough to withstand my force. Disappointed, but not defeated, I continued dreaming about residue.
The night before the exhibition my mind wandered into a clearing. There I found the answer. I saw a mound of flour, like when you make pasta. It resembled the pile of sink rubble. I knew that what I had to do was place a number of eggs, pointing to an action yet to come, in the divet of the rubble. During the exhibition I would crack the eggs and slowly they’d mix in with the rubble, creating a kind of pasta in its own right. Maybe I would even attempt using a rolling pin to make it shapes.
The day of the exhibition I walked to Pipe Factory and bought eggs on the way. I felt mischeivous doing so, as if I was going to egg the exhibition. What a waste. When the first couple of visitors started rolling in, I cracked the eggs. I had placed a circle of tea lights around the piece, perhaps they’d even cook. They did not. But it did not matter. I was excited by the fact that the piece was in motion. I called it “For the time being” and put the recipe alongside it, to make sure that the audience were aware of the rubble being the remnants of a crushed sink.
During the duration of the exhibition the cracked eggs continued sinking into the powder, making more and more paste. By the end, you could almost mold the sink into a new shape. Perhaps I should’ve made another sink. Lessons for next time. For the time being, this was the piece. I was happy with the result, and it felt truly intuitive considering how much the piece had shifted in my mind during the making process. I rolled with the punches in a way I had not for a while.
When I came into fourth year I had all these grand plans for different designs and pieces, especially ones which would make me get into the workshops. However, I’ve realized as the semester went on that my work had always been a lot more intuitive and feeling-orientated than that. I don’t know if I can make art according to a plan. Instead, what I require is to be surrounded by materials and to sit with these objects for as long as they require. I need a social environment for the theoretical aspects of the work, but I need intimacy and solitude for the actual making process, something which I feel I could never truly achieve in a workshop. I want to make a mess (the opposite of how I operate normally) but I feel as though that would have to be restricted in a workshop environment since other people are going to be using the space too. Obviously I am making a lot of assumptions about the workshop here, especially considering that I have only ever been in once.
What had become increasingly clear is how much my work requires a safe home environment. I cannot explore without the safety of my own home (Attachment Theory).
Soon I would have a home again…
