Silja Yvette
Metaphysics of Core Matter

An image of the contemporary reality of accelerated life. A window into the whirlwind of our times. A musing of our society‘s priorities. A reflection of our struggle to reconcile our ambitions with our values. A manifestation of the rapid pace of progress. A representation of our impact on the world. A testament to our relationship with the environment. A toolbox of modernity as a symbol of the human spirit, reflecting our relentless pursuit of knowledge, innovation, and advancement in the complexities of our times. 

 

In the framework of a pop-up gallery concept and as a partner institution of the European Month of Photography Berlin (EMOP) 2023, I curated selected works from Silja Yvette's series Metaphysics of Core Matter in an exhibition in Berlin Mitte.​

 

Metaphysics of Core Matter is a foundational interrogation of contemporary materials at the intersection of art, research and industry. Silja Yvette explores packaging bodies in their problematic dimensions and expansion for the environment. In the social context, packaging bodies are to be understood as archetypes of consumption - mass-produced articles made of foam, Styrofoam, aluminum, which are already worthless at the moment of their destination. These materials, which are quickly disposed of in everyday life, are taken care of by Silja Yvette and raised to a symbolic pedestal. A new value is ascribed to them with a reference to what they actually stand for: an image of the contemporary reality of accelerated life. A construction kit of modernity. With a sensual aesthetic and iconic staging that provokes the foreign in the familiar, Silja Yvette invites the viewers of her works to come into closer contact with their motifs. In this way, the foreign in the familiar leads to a confrontation with the everyday in an extraordinary dimension of perception and resistance at the same time, a being touched as an impetus for reflections on sustainability and feelings about our earth, world and our own actions.

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Contrasting with the pictorial motifs, Silja Yvette‘s series is sustai-

nably produced and integrates primarily organic and recycled raw

materials. This approach is unusual for the photography industry;

photo production and presentation often have negative ecological

consequences.

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With her artistic view of the industry, Silja Yvette challenges con-

ventional categories of myth and progress. She explores the inter-

section of tradition and innovation, timelessness and temporality,

and poetry and pragmatism, prompting reflection on the meanings

behind these categories and enlivening the discourse surrounding

them. At the same time, her conceptual approach pushes the boun-

daries of the philosophical implications of technological and cultural

change.

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Silja Yvette lives and works in Berlin. She graduated from the Stä-

delschule University of Fine Arts in Frankfurt am Main in 2011 and

additionally studied architecture until 2010 and philosophy until

2018. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions

in Germany since 2006, in other European countries since 2011,

and in Beijing in 2016. She has received numerous awards and

prizes, including the German Photo Book Award in 2019 for her

work Collective Creatures , Stuttgart. In 2019 she was nominated

for the Edward Steichen Award, Luxembourg, and in 2022 for the

Art Award of Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin. For 2023, she received a

grant as part of the Goldrausch project for female artists, Berlin.

For her final exhibition, I contributed an essay titled Nudging Path to Novelty: Uncovering the Unknown to her artist catalog (available in English only). If you’re interested in the catalog and/or in works of Silja Yvette, feel free to reach out.