• photography Sandra Myhrberg

    makeup & hair Alicia Hurst

    Psychedelio in The Den of Wolves, 2024

    Issa Salliander and Den Of Wolves

    Written by Rosel Jackson Stern by Sandra Myhrberg

    The game development company 10 Chambers has partnered with Mexico-based Swedish artist Issa Salander to create new work for their upcoming title Den Of Wolves. Issa has produced a series of physical paintings to inspire the game in a collaboration between fine art and digital world-building. The paintings feature a series of character masks, some of which will be featured in the game Den Of Wolves. The idea is to honour the physical craft of storytelling with game development. This is the company's first of many collaborations with creatives ranging from dancers to choreographers and fashion designers.
    Odalisque caught up with Issa this Wednesday at Ericssonhallen in Stockholm, where her work is installed 8-9th of May.

    Rosel: What has been the process of developing these images? Where do you get inspiration from?
    Issa: I’ve grown up in many different places. Right now I’m in Mexico and spent a total of 12 years there. It’s a beautiful and surreal place, full of contradiction. The contrast between light and dark, good and evil is an important part of what inspires me. I like to create work that lies in the spectrum between what society considers opposites to each other.
    I start by creating a digital collage for each painting so that the piece has a frame of reference. One piece features the hair of Andy Warhol, a Second World War gas mask with a gold-plated mask underneath.

    R: You come from a fine art background. What appealed to you about collaborating with a gaming company?
    I: I enjoy a challenge and the chance to develop my practice. This project was an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. In fine art, we talk about the artist, the work, and the viewer. With this project, there’s a fourth actor: the user. That’s a novel concept for me and I want to incorporate new experiences and points of view in my work.
    I was never interested in AI art. When I was approached with this idea, it felt like a push beyond the limitations of AI; I got to make the work I wanted and have it introduced into a digital world by extremely talented artists. It’s incredibly exciting.

    R: What’s it like to hand over your work to be interpreted by others, in this case, game designers?
    I: It’s nerve-racking but deeply inspiring. Game designers are artists and they possess skills that I admire. I’ve always loved gaming aesthetics so this project felt like a no-brainer. 10 Chambers has given me the space to come up with my vision and total creative freedom.

    R: What do you hope fellow artists can take away from this project?
    I: I hope it broadens their horizons to what commercial partnerships can look like. I hope companies invest in artists while giving them the freedom to create. Partnerships like this can open up your work to a new audience and the opportunity to play in their world. 10 Chambers have been generous enough to surrender artistic control to be inspired. That’s how we end up with something beautiful.

    Den Of Wolves does not yet have a release date.

    Psychedelio in The Den of Wolves, 2024
    Writ of Detinue on The Den of Wolves, 2024
    photography Sandra Myhrberg

    makeup & hair Alicia Hurst

    Spiel mit Mir in the Den of Wolves, 2024

  • Wanås Sculpture Park

    photography Sandra Myhrberg

    The Ocean in the Forest – A Daring Exhibition at Wanås Sculpture Park

    Written by Natalia Muntean

    Located in the Österlen region of Sweden, Wanås Sculpture Park has long been celebrated as a space where art and nature merge. This year, the park welcomes the creations of four artists under the umbrella of a daring and thought-provoking exhibition. Titled The Ocean in the Forest, the exhibition gathers works by Lavanya Mani, Youmna Chlala, Evan Ifekoya, and Eduardo Navarro.

    Through their immersive works, the artists inspire visitors to explore collective power, fantasy, and whimsy through stories and healing sounds. By juxtaposing the vastness of the ocean with the intimacy of the forest, they transform Wanås Sculpture Park into a playground where the boundaries between land and sea, reality and imagination are blurred.

    The Ocean in the Forest is on display until November 4 th , 2024.

    This Feeling, Oceanic by Youmna Chlala (Lebanon)
    “The colour changes depending on the surroundings and depending on from where you observe it,” says Youmna Chlala about “This Feeling, Oceanic”, her part of the group exhibition. The Lebanese-American artist digs into her well of personal memories and weaves them with historical events in order to reflect on her relationship to the forest and the ocean, which she sees as a portal connecting us to an ancient past and a future where anything could be possible. Beirut, the ever- moving blue horizon line and forests that live under the sea are all intertwined in the narrative, site-specific art installation, where sun lounge chairs create a drawing in the landscape. Through her installation, the artist invites us to sit, listen and try to paint the future with our imagination.

    Apo Ifa for the High Heart and Warrior Spirit by Evan Ifekoya (Nigeria)
    Sound, stillness, scents, and intentional space are used by Evan Ifekoya to delve into embodiment through ancestral and intuitive wisdom. In a similar way to the earth's surface, humans are predominantly water, and the artist believes that ocean waves symbolize the wisdom we possess within our emotions. At Wanås, the Nigerian-born and London-based artist has transformed a historical private “tea pavilion” and the rhododendron passage leading up to it into a ceremonial space. By making architectural adjustments and incorporating a diverse soundscape including rattles, ocean waves and guided narration, the artist has created an immersive environment that affects the body’s vibration frequencies, encouraging exertion, stillness, and presence. For Ifekoya, the Apo Ifa embodies the necessary tools for “holding space” by transforming environments to encourage people to arrive—to be present emotionally, mentally, and physically.

    I found a Forest at the Bottom of the Ocean by Eduardo Navarro (Argentina)
    An iridescent jellyfish enveloping a large old tree is Eduardo Navarro’s manner of exploring how non-human beings interact and feel in the world and the artist’s contribution to the forest at Wanås. With an evolutionary history dating back 500 million years, jellyfish are not only 95% water, but they are also one of the oldest creatures to roam the earth. This fact has intrigued the Argentinian artist, who
    imagines jellyfish to exist outside of evolutionary time, in complete harmony with the forest, while also emphasizing that we humans have also evolved from fish-like beings.Visitors to the forest are invited to play the chimes attached to the creature's tentacles in an improvisational manner, which transforms the jellyfish's elastic movement into harmonic waves of sound. This creates a sense of unity with the forest, ocean, oneself, and all other living beings, both human and non-human.

    Fables by Lavanya Mani (India)
    Titled Fables, Lavanya Mani’s piece for the group exhibition puzzle offers a reinterpretation of a famous painting by Miskin, a court painter during the Mughal Empire in 17th-century India. The Ark: Animals of the World Complain to the Raven (after Miskin) represents a modern version of Noah’s Ark, where birds, animals and plants gather without humans. Created specifically for this exhibition, Mani’s work allows for the wind, clouds and animals to take centre stage, connecting historical apocalyptic visions with modern concerns about climate change and protecting all life forms. Born and based in India, Mani turns to the mythological and historical when it comes to inspiration for her art, drawing from ancient Indian fables, Medieval manuscripts or biblical accounts. Using traditional craft techniques, Mani uses natural pigments in her work, obtaining those from turmeric, madder root or pomegranate peel. Her works explore how stories, visual culture, and goods, such as spices, dyes, textiles, and diseases, travelled through colonial trade routes, influencing the economics of imperialism in India.

    This Feeling, Oceanic - Youmna Chla
    la
    Apo Ifa for the High Heart and Warrior Spirit - Evan Ifekoya
    I found a Forest at the Bottom of the Ocean -  Eduardo Navarro
    Fables -  Lavanya Mani
  • image courtesy of Julia Viklund

    Mille Notti x Beata Heuman launching new collection August 2024

    Written by Fashion Tales

    In August 2024, Mille Notti is launching a new collection developed in collaboration with the acclaimed interior designer Beata Heuman. The collection comprises two duvet sets and one bedspread, all drawing inspiration from historical colours and patterns.

    Beata Heuman was raised in the countryside of Skåne but has since 2004 been based in London, where her continually expanding product collection can be admired in a new showroom at 188 Hammersmith Road. Today, her studio primarily works on interior design for private residences but has also undertaken prestigious commercial projects, such as the Hotel de la Boétie in Paris. For Beata Heuman, the collaboration with Mille Notti was both eagerly anticipated and very natural.

    – My first experience of how much better the sleeping experience becomes when you have really good sheets was when Mille Notti's founder, Peder Wehtje, gave me some beautiful sheets when I was 15 years old, which I still use. In other words, I have been a fan of Mille Notti for over 25 years now.

    She explains that she has long pondered designing bed linen, particularly bedspreads.
    – I find it difficult to find bedspreads that have both character and elegant timelessness. Mille Notti has granted me significant freedom regarding the design of the collection, which is always fantastic fun as a designer, while also being able to rely entirely on their almost three decades of experience in terms of quality and manufacturing. I am incredibly proud of the result, which I believe offers something new for both of us, and I hope that customers will also appreciate it greatly.

    She further explains that for her, the entirety of the bedroom is crucial, and that comfort must be the focal point.
    – This encompasses furniture, such as bedside tables where necessary, the right type of lighting that is both cosy and functional for reading, thoughtful storage to avoid clutter, and colours that are calming. That being said, the most important aspect, of course, remains the bed, the sheets, the duvet, and not least, the pillows,” says Beata Heuman, continuing:

    – When I began to consider which types of products, in addition to duvet covers and pillowcases, I felt could be suitable, bedspreads were a fairly obvious choice. Personally, I feel that a made bed seems incomplete without a bedspread, but I've gotten the impression that it's becoming less common to use them. The bed is always central in a bedroom, and a nice bedspread can give a dominant surface more character. In this collection, I have chosen colours and patterns that complement each other, so that everything can be combined in various ways.

    Mille Notti's co-owner and Creative Director Catherine Wehtje Hustad reveals that she and Beata Heuman had long discussed collaborating together, and they now felt that the time was right. Beata is not only my friend but also a great source of inspiration for me, both in my personal and professional life. I wanted to give her free rein so that the collection would feel one hundred percent Beata in everything, which is why we have chosen to manufacture the bed linens in our 230 thread count cotton percale, which is her favourite quality,” says Wehtje Hustad, continuing:

    – Design collaborations should add something to both the brand and the designer, and I can see that this will be something beautiful for both of us. Beata's design brings a continental and warm feeling to our otherwise quite light and crisp range, something that fits well for us now as we aim even more to reach new markets internationally.

    image courtesy of Julia Viklund
    image courtesy of Julia Viklund

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