Jenny Åkerlund

With a starting point in the field of perception Jenny Åkerlund’s practice revolves around aspects of time and transformation in relation to visual culture. Through the use of disciplines like history of science and astronomy, and with techniques spanning drawing, glass and video, she investigates the impermanent character of the visible in different ways. This field of interest has led her to work on subjects such as human computers (women working in the field of astronomy in the early 20th century), scientific depictions in relation to objectivity, entoptic phenomena (visual effects occurring within the eye itself) and studies of material such as dust.

During her residency at MORPHO, Jenny will develop new works related to the international star-mapping project Carte du Ciel, initiated at the Paris Observatory in 1887 and the so-called human computers: women who worked at observatories during this period, with the main task to analyze the large amount of data the project entailed. Through the use of material collected from the Paris Observatory and the Royal Observatory of Belgium, she intends to highlight and question aspects of visibility, value and labour in relation to historiography, focusing on the role of the handmade traces within astronomy and material aspects of analogue photography, preservation and archival practices.

Jenny Åkerlund (1984, Sweden) holds an MFA from Malmö Art Academy. Her work has, among other places, been exhibited at the International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago, PRÁM, Prague, Cage Gallery, Tokyo, Hagströmer Medico-Historical Library, Stockholm, DISPLAY, Parma, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Galerie L’inlassable, Paris, Goya Curtain, Tokyo, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. She has been an artist in residence at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, PRÁM, Prague and Arts Initiative Tokyo (AIT).