Marcelo Ferreira Gustafsson

“Craft is a formula, a debate between how and why. 
A negotiation in material, form and tradition. A performative dialogue between inner and outer dimensions. Ferreira’s body of work explores jewelry, sculpture and text with an autoethnographic practice.“

Name of work 
Opisthotonus

Thoughts about the artwork:
Opisthotonus is a type of abnormal posture caused by long term tetanus and trauma. Here envisioned in a textile installation consisting of 2011 individual crafted, embroidered and beaded pieces. Tied together by an embroidered suit jacket. Enlightening the aspect of textile as a material that embodies care and restriction. Silk fragments collected from 1900-Edwardian period. Mourning gowns and Swedish mourning folklore has been shredded and repurposed as a mourn in progress.

Describe the process; who, what, why, where, when, how and with what help:

Mourning in our Eurocentric and western society has been seen a something one practice in solitude. A private and non-visual practice.
In opposite to the Edwardian period where mourning was a state of doing and often expected to be openly put into practice. Therefore, isolated to one single entity.
This body of work envisions grief and mourning as a collective example through its materiality where several pieces of fabrics traditionally used for burial and mourning are forced together into a body of work, sorrows overlapping each other to form a new suggestion and narrative.

About the artist – BIO or short version of Curriculum Vitae
Ferreira obtained his education at Konstfack university of arts, Crafts and Design

And has since then been imitated in several communal projects and working his craft practice and tutoring at various art schools. Guest lecture at HDK-STENEBY.