Helga Jakobson’s interest and bond in landscapes, about her work, fascinations and connections

Helga Jakobson studied in Canada, Paris and The Netherlands, Canadian from heart, but nowadays rooted and grown in Tilburg. Constantly inspired by the potentiality of technology and by the natural world. Her work responds to conditions of limbo within existence and acts as a platform to confront the unknown, with a focus on death, time and ephemerality. Helga is also interested in ecology and exploring how we as individuals cope with death and dying illness. Researching the phenomena of cultural iatrogenesis is a major trajectory point in her work, which refers to the loss of traditional ways of dealing with things such as suffering, illness and death. 

Helga Jakobson’s interest in art started from an early age as her mother encouraged her to create.
“My practice has a strong tie to family and to shared spaces and experiences.
My work tends to revolve around family mythologies, the natural landscape and connectivity.”  

At the moment, she’s focused on developing work that relates to sound, technology and organic material.
“I’ve been researching frequency and creating instruments that I use to play organic material with or through. Specifically, I just built two theremins that I have been coding to play upon the interaction between different plants.” 

She’s fascinated by moments of limbo; the spaces and interstices between things, fleeting moments and feelings, death, entropy, and the environment.
“As a practicing Neopagan, I’m interested in forming relationships, bonds and rituals with whichever landscape I find myself located within.” 

© Helga Jakobson

From that point of view Helga likes to work with a very wide variety of media, from sculpture to printmaking, to coding, to relational or performative works. She adheres to the philosophy that whatever media you use, it is rich with meaning and connotations; Helga approaches her work from whichever medium acts as the best conduit for her message. 

She’s very down to earth when it comes to the question how she’s processing her work. She simply answered: “Through a lot of physical labour. A piece comes to life once I’ve addressed and gestated upon it for what instinctively feels like long enough.” 

When you see your object or a material as a relationship, it will help you to guide you into respect for it. Helga works often with organic material which all have their unique limitations and existences. To Helga it’s important to listen to those things and respect them. 

“My aim is to propose new systems and methods for engagement. Most recently this has taken form through building digital interfaces, tools and instruments used to explore, amplify and reflect the barely visible, tangible or audible, while expressing the resonance and relationship between people, plants, and organic matter.”  

© Helga Jakobson

Helga would like to continue to develop her skills within sound production and digital technology. It’s a new and fruitful field for her, that she’s finding constant frustrations and excitements in.

Her life is a path and she’s convinced that it will take her to where she needs to maintain a sense of responsiveness and mobility. Her interest grew for people such as British philosopher Timothy Morton, lecturers/professors Elizabeth Grosz and Donna Haraway who studied zoology, biology and philosophy, all with a connection to philosophy, atmosphere and their own, sometimes post-apocalyptic perspectives to see the world. 

Geplaatst op 03.02.2018.

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