Semester 2- Week One
Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'.


Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg's intricately constructed claymation films are both terrifyingly
disturbing and artlessly sweet.


The new works created for the Venice Biennale explore a surrealistic Garden of Eden in which all that is natural goes awry.


She exposes the innate fear of what is not understood and confronts viewers with the complexity of emotions.

Nathalie Djurberg was awarded the silver lion for a promising young artist at the Venice
Art Biennale 09.
(http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6886/nathalie-djurberg)


Research Djurberg's work in order to answer the following questions;


1. What do you understand by the word 'claymation'?


Claymation is a form of stop-motion animation that uses actual clay figures which are molded into different positions for each frame.


2. What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?


The term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden' and ‘all that is natural goes awry’ is a method of describing Djurberg's work. These two represent the beauty of Djurberg's work. However, these work is very different from what we know about the "Garden of Eden", because of the awry effect.


3. What are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurberg confronts us with?


Most of Djurberg’s stories seem to show characters that are peaceful but slowly changes into unsettling and disturbing characters. The sudden change of the storyline leaves her viewers disturbed and alarmed towards the grotesque scenes.


4. How does Djurberg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?


Djurberg’s stories often relate to folktales that mainly include traditional themes and roles such as “the good, the bad and the kind helper.”(Ryberg, 2005)
The ideas she communicates through her work tell stories and cover topics such as war, violence, sexuality, sadism, and the darker side of the human soul. She combines clay figures with traditional tales to hide her ideas and trick viewers to thinking that it is nothing but a typical childish work


5. There is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do you think this has come about?


The artist is coming with the idea of opposit situation. Viewers automatically associate the idea of ‘Innocent and Sweet’ to a childlike theme, free from terror and death. Turning ‘Innocent and Sweet’ into a more mature and disturbing scene would create stir and chaos, leaving viewers shocked and disgust. This would eventually turn into an issue, which will attract more attention and media towards the designer(s) who is/are responsible for this effect. Looking at it more from a positive


6. In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?


Her works are really impressive. The claymation video she used and the theme about the intense social problems successfully drew people’s attention. The topic about
innate fear and the complexity of emotions that she explored is really interesting.

7. Add some of your own personal comments on her work.




'Experiment' 2009 Venice Biennale
'Turn into Me' 2008
Posted by Julia at 7:53 PM 1 comments Labels: claymation, Garden of Eden, Nathalie Djurberg, Venice Biennale.