studio drift's floating monolith is centerpiece to latest exhibition 'elemental'

for the first time in northern europe dutch duo studio drift will present a solo exhibition of their work. held at the amos rex in helsinki, the exhibition ‘elemental,’ which opened march 6, will present the work of lonneke gordijn and ralph nauta in a bid to explore the basic premise from which all living beings operate – as single entities attaching themselves to larger contexts.

drifter, 2019 | image courtesy of amos rex / stella ojala, 2019

through film, sculpture and installation art, the exhibition will examine the idea that lone particles are meaningless unless they are part of some greater, more complicated system. all works featured in the exhibition are visually and conceptually linked by a module in the shape of a block with the proportions 1:1:2.

materialism | image by amos rex / stella ojala, 2019

the centrepiece of the exhibition is drifter, a floating concrete monolith measuring four by two by two meters. the piece is inspired by the literary classic ‘utopia’ (1516) in which author thomas envisioned a society with gender equality, no private ownership, and where anything that can be imagined can be built with the help of a malleable miracle material.

materialism | image by amos rex / stella ojala, 2019

‘this block is one of the most effective man-made systems: it is modular by nature, like a pixel, and practically anything can be built with it‘, explains studio drift. ‘the drifter serves as a symbol of human systems; the blocks are large, heavy and rigid while on the ground, but once airborne, they appear more natural, releasing themselves from gravity and gaining the ability to move, like all living beings.’

fragile future | image by amos rex / stella ojala, 2019

studio drift’s most recent work ‘materialism’, in which everyday ‘made objects’ are deconstructed to only their raw materials, has also been extended specially for the exhibition. it will include new art pieces based on everyday objects of finnish culture, such as a nokia phone and a pair of fiskars scissors. materialism is an ongoing research project in which studio drift explores the everyday ‘made objects’ that surround us, by ‘de-constructing the constructed’.