PRESENTATION: Ingela Ihrman-Nocturne

Moving between performance, sculpture and video, Ingela Ihrman’s practice explores the interconnected coexistence of mundane life forms such as invasive weeds, intestinal flora, extinct amphibians and nocturnal birds. Her work nurtures empathy, tenderness and a sense of wonder for all living creatures, seeing each of them as a part of a wider ecology. Handcrafted costumes are a recurring element in her work, which comes to life in performances where the artist embodies animals and plants whilst blooming or giving birth.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Gasworks Archive

Ingela Ihrman in “Nocturne”, her first solo exhibition in London, brings together newly commissioned and existing works, integrating them into a mythological arc inspired by the extraordinary life and imagined death of Jan Lindblad, a Swedish naturalist, photographer writer and whistling artist who used broadcast media to share his love for fragile ecosystems all over the world. The exhibition opens with “Green Paradise” (2009), an early video work that depicts a gastroscopy-like journey into the digestive tract of a giant snake, recreating what Lindblad would have seen from inside the anaconda he wrestled during one of his filming expeditions to the South American rainforest. In the artist’s own words, “light leaks through the skin and membranes of this snake’s long, bulging body as the filmmaker encounters his subject in the ultimate close-up shot”. At the entrance of the exhibition, a new wearable sculpture enables viewers to merge literally with nature, inviting them to embody Lindblad’s digested remains after his close encounter with the snake. Entitled “Jan Lindblad’s Spirit (Anaconda Faeces)”, this sculptural cloak makes it possible for visitors to see through Lindblad’s eyes while haunting the exhibition. Inside the gallery, Ihrman presents a new iteration of “Oilbird with Nestling” (2021), a performance for the camera recorded in conditions of self-isolation during the pandemic. Ihrman first encountered oilbirds through the documentary films of Lindblad, who made a pioneering use of infra-red light to capture the unseen behavior of this tropical bird species that lives in constant darkness. Oilbird chicks were harvested to extract oil for lamps. But the nests in the deepest part of caves were often left untouched because of a lethal curse rumored to haunt those who dared to enter. For the exhibition, Ihrman has transformed the gallery into a dark nesting cave, where large feathers made of silk coated with wheat starch are delicately suspended in mid-air. Deep inside this cavern, a baby bird curls up in its nest. This creature’s soft, semi-translucent skin is dotted with feather filaments, giving its undeveloped body an uncanny yet tender appearance. The nestling was made as a hand puppet for the video in the second gallery, in which the artist becomes an oilbird and feeds their chick, then nervously fidgets with a light switch—a scene that evokes this bird’s traumatic history with light, energy and extraction. The run of the exhibition coincides with the duration of an oilbird’s nestling period. The exhibition unfolds around a live performance in which the artist, once again embodying an oilbird with a costume made of reed, goes through the violent and caring process of feeding their baby bird, pushing fruit into its throat as the chick regurgitates peel and seeds.

Photo: Ingela Ihrman, Oilbird with Nestling, 2021. Video HD, sound, 6 min. Exhibition view. Photo: Andy Keate, © Ingela Ihrman, Courtesy the artist and Gasworks

Info: Gasworks, 155 Vauxhall Street, London, United Kingdom, Duration: 2/2-30/4/2023, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 12:00-18:00, www.gasworks.org.uk/