Hanna Hansdotter
Kalypso
09.10—31.10.26
Gallery Steinsland Berliner presents Kalypso, a solo exhibition of new work by influential glass artist Hanna Hansdotter. Known for her bold and distinctive approach to the time-honoured craft of glassblowing, Hansdotter creates sculptures that reimagine the material’s inherent conventions. In her latest exhibition, she revisits forms familiar to her practice while propelling them into new territory.
In Kalypso, Hansdotter muses on the moment when closeness tips into control, and on the double-edged nature of love, drawing on Homer’s epic Odyssey. According to the myth, Odysseus is shipwrecked and washed ashore on an island inhabited by the beautiful nymph Calypso, who attempts to keep him as her companion with the promise of immortality, despite his longing to return home. As an allegory for the bonds of love, where affection can be at once enthralling and confining, the myth informs an exhibition populated by ensnared and manipulated glass figures.
In the series Lost and Found, precious glass objects, akin to pearls and seashells, hang chained and shackled from wall-mounted fixtures. Tangled among them are glass hearts bearing the words “I got you” – a statement evoking both tenderness and possession.
Juxtaposition has long been central to Hansdotter’s practice. It is embedded in the very technique through which her recognizable forms are created: molten glass is hand-blown and shaped through both containment and release by rigid iron cages. Much like intimacy, the act of shaping glass relies on both strength and fragility. Inherent to the process is a phase of transition, where the old form is reconstituted into something new. Sculpture Morphmates comprises two cocoon-like formations distorting in mirrored unison, suspended in a state of metamorphosis where the final direction remains unclear.
Hanna Hansdotter (b. 1984, SE) is based in Glasriket (The Kingdom of Crystal), a region in Småland historically renowned for its glass industry. She holds a BFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design and trained in glass blowing at Kosta Glass Center. Hansdotter’s work is represented in the collections of Sweden’s National Museum of Fine Artsand the Public Art Agency Sweden, among others. She is a recipient of the Swedish Government’s Export Award for Cultural and Creative Industries, which recognized her as “one of our time’s most interesting and innovative glass artists”.