Still Garden

Wiebke Pandikow Solo Exhibition 26. 01. – 26. 02. 2023

In the middle of the cold and dark of winter, here is a small, colorful garden. Gravel trails paths in subdued pinks and grays.
Bright leaves reach out from branches.
Vibrant moss and lichen creep over wood.

Tiny baskets lie empty, as if waiting for berries and flowers.
But all is quiet and unmoving. Nothing here has grown, but something discarded has been given a new life.

Wiebke Pandikow has worked with plastic bags since 2014, developing techniques to transform the material utilising a flat iron and soldering irons. First exhibiting solo at GaoShAn in 2019 with pieces made only from translucent plastic bags, now colour is the focus. This development started tentatively in 2017 with pieces utilising the subdued tones of gravel collected from Finnish winter roads and culminated in the last years in bright pieces incorporating colored bags as well as pigments.

Along the way a residency spent in Italy in 2021 brought inspiration. Yet it was also shocking to see the beautiful landscape of the nature reserve marred by widespread, thoughtless dumping of trash.

Without the ubiquitous plastic our civilization couldn't exist. At the same time, it's a burden on the environment with far-reaching and often as yet unknown consequences. Plastic, especially single use, is a symbol for mindless consumerism and a throw-away society.

Wiebke Pandikow re-evaluates this often thoughtlessly discarded material in the context of contemporary jewelry. She accords it attention and care when working on it with patience and diligence typically associated with traditional craftwork while questioning the meaning of material value.

In a world in the midst of difficult transitions, she encourages the viewer to perceive a waste material from a different viewpoint – to see possibilities and beauty in change – and to find resilience and enjoyment in making do with what we can find close at hand, sometimes directly under our feet.