Arts Thread

Wordless Language of Glass is Jessica Westerberg's MFA project from Konstfack's Degree Exhibition 2024. She creates installations and sculptures that explore the beauty in ambiguity. Through her material-based work, she highlights glass as a medium for self-expression and exploration. The purpose of her work is rooted in celebrating chaos, lack of structure and diversity and can be seen as a critique of societal structures that do not fit neurodivergent, learning disability and non-normative bodies. The work aims to explore the potential of glass to reflect and communicate deep emotions. The glass sculptures can be read as portraits: partly as psychological beings with several layers of meaning; partly as fleshy, with organs, membranes and nerves. For her, the creation of the sculpture means an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between individuals, materials, and societal norms through artistic expressions via glassblowing, recycled aluminum and steel. Each glass body carries an individual story that relates to the solid structure of metal. In the manufacturing process; chance plays a role in fostering an honest and genuine relationship between Westerberg and the material. Active creation and reflection are methods she employs to reflect the inner self, the external, and the projections we leave around us. Jessica Westerberg (1990), graduated from Konstfack - University of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm (2024) with an MFA in CRAFT! with specialization in glass. She holds a BA in Product Design from Beckmans College of Design (2020). Her work has been exhibited at the swedish Design Week (2023/22/21/20), art galleries as Rejmyre art lab (2024), at OAK gallery during Stockholm Craft Week (2023), Paris Design Week (2021/19), Stockholms auktionsverk (2021), Ung Svensk Form (2020), Röhsska muséet (2020), Dunkers Kulturhus (2020), Milan Design Week (2019). She has been awarded several prestigious scholarships as The Swedish Freemason's Order; Jubelfonden, Rector's Scholarship (2024), The Anna-Lisa Thomson Foundation (2024), The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Working grant (2022), Estrid Ericsons foundation (2024/19), J.L. Eklunds hantverksstipendium (2023/24), Beata Brummers and Ulla Fröberg Cramérs Foundation (2023), Svenskt Tenn (2018). She was a jury member of the Design S -Swedish Design Awards (2020), been written about in Omkonst (2024), Residence Magazine (2021), and was the winner of SVT's TV-production Mästerskaparna (2019).