Pia Ferm. To mill, to mould, to pour and fall

Ferm arbetar med både vävning och tuftning – tekniker där varje tråd och varje yta bär på en berättelse. Hennes textila verk är reliefartade, taktila och ofta baserade på egna teckningar, som fungerar som visuella kartor under skapandet. Motiven hämtas från vardagen, populärkultur och personliga minnen, och omvandlas till grafiska, abstrakta former. Resultatet är ett bildspråk som väcker associationer till allt från grottmålningar och hieroglyfer till serier och emojis – bilder som talar bortom orden.

Skulpturerna i sten, brons och marmor delar samma stiliserade uttryck som textilierna, och visar Ferms intresse för att översätta teckning till tredimensionell form. Genomgående i hennes arbete är en respekt för materialets egenskaper och en vilja att låta processen ta tid. I en värld där snabbhet ofta premieras, insisterar Ferm på långsamhet – en produktiv, närvarande och kroppslig långsamhet där varje beslut är både visuellt och fysiskt.
Utställningen bjuder in dig att stanna upp, känna efter och följa med i en konstnärlig praktik där tid inte bara är ett verktyg, utan ett ämne i sig. Här får du uppleva verk som inte bara visar vad de är – utan hur de blev till.

“To mill, to mould, to pour and fall” is the title of Swedish artist Pia Ferm’s solo exhibition opening at Kristianstad Konsthall. The exhibition presents a cross-section of Ferm’s practice over the past seven years, bringing together both early and more recent textile work, as well as sculpture in stone, bronze and clay.

Pia Ferm (b.1986, Lysekil, Sweden) is based in Frankfurt am Main and holds an MFA from the Staedelschule in Germany. “To mill, to mould, to pour and fall” marks her first major institutional exhibition in Sweden. Ferm’s artistic practice unites the spontaneity of her initial drawings, water-color sketches, with the tactile expression of textiles and the inherent qualities of the artist’s chosen materials. Through weaving and tufting, she creates relief-like surfaces where each thread carries a story. The exhibition centers on pace, presence and the labor of the hand.

Behind every textile work lies a drawing—often made with pencil, ink or even a ballpoint pen—that serves as a visual map for the final artwork. Ferm describes these sketches as a kind of “image shorthand”; compressed graphic lines functioning as notes rather than finished images. Watercolor is often used to develop a sense of the work’s eventual color composition. Yet, the translation from paper to textile is never linear—rather a dynamic process in which material negotiates with the initial idea, and where the artist strives to master her chosen medium.

Ferm’s deep interest in spatial objects—particularly the transformation of drawing into three-dimensional form—extends beyond textile to her sculptural work in stone, bronze, and clay. She regards all the work as undeviating drawings, where contours justify their very existence. Her motifs are drawn from everyday environments, popular culture, and personal impressions, later distilled into graphic abstract elements. The resulting language plays with their inherent symbolism, evoking associations from cave paintings and hieroglyphs, to comics and emojis.

Ferm’s work is allowed to take both time and space. Each step in her process requires reconsideration, yet thought and action occur simultaneously. Through this, Ferm’s work became receipts of the time invested in their making. They serve not only as evidence of their existence but also of their becoming. In a world driven by constant efficiency, Ferm offers resistance through a paradoxically productive slowness. To mill, to mould, to pour and fall is an exhibition that invites reflection, closeness, and curiosity.