Birke Gorm – sit-up (sit-down), 2022 - ongoing

Bodies carry more than they can contain in Birke Gorm’s sculptures. Life-sized figures sewn from discarded burlap sacks slouch across cardboard boxes or lean against the wall, their bulging forms hovering between bodies, sacks and repositories, as shredded paper, cardboard and other scavenged materials press against their seams. For Gorm, bodies, sacks and pockets are forms that gather, preserve and circulate. Once a ubiquitous material of agricultural trade and storage, burlap has largely fallen out of economic use. Working with discarded sacks, fabric remnants, metal found on the street and recycled paper spun into yarn, Gorm restores value to materials that have fallen out of circulation. Through sewing, weaving and mending, forms of labour historically associated with women, the sculptures question whose work and which materials are recognised as worth preserving.

Birke Gorm constructs sculptural forms that oscillate between fragility and monumentality. Through processes of collection, disassembly and reconfiguration, her work unsettles distinctions between waste and resource, ruin and value. Engaging with the afterlives of objects, the artist articulates a critical position on systems of production and consumption, while exploring repair and transformation as political gestures.