Maja Fredin — Broiler, 2024–2026
Maja Fredin — Humonculi, 2026

Initially conceived according to the artist’s own measurements as wearable shells, Maja Fredin’s textile sculptures Broiler – broiler chicken, raised for its meat – take on a new meaning when she begins bodybuilding. Now understood as stages of a transformation, they trace the passage from a muscular, disciplined and high-performing body towards a form collapsed on the ground, evoking the posture of a chicken. Around them, the Humonculi – small human skeletons made here from the bones of the chickens consumed by the artist – seem to observe the scene. By abandoning her vegetarian diet to experience the logic of mass gain from within, Maja Fredin confronts what she considers a dark aspect of the relationship with the living world. Together, the works reveal the reverse side of performance fantasies: the glorified body of the bodybuilder converges with that of the farmed chicken, both caught in the same pursuit of growth that paradoxically leads to their weakening.

Drawing on an extensive background in textile practice, Maja Fredin conceives her performative installations as extensions of everyday gestures and choreographies. Blending humor, excess, and a kitsch aesthetic, she draws on references to consumer culture, food, body image, and physical decay to construct situations that oscillate between irony and discomfort. Her practice turns this tension into a space for critically observing the desires, norms, and contradictions that shape contemporary societies.