Inka & Niclas

Luminous Matter I (4/5), 2019

Archival pigment print, 120 x 160 cm

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Luminous Matter – A Closer Look at Nature through the Eyes of Inka & Niclas

Words by Olga Krzeszowiec Malmsten

In Luminous Matter, the artists have narrowed down their perspective, both in terms of subject matter and geography. Inka & Niclas continue their examination of nature as a cultural construct, but the focus now lies on milieus connected to the artists own childhood and heritage – a partly introspective approach with a micro/macro perspective, coherent with a current universal strive towards understanding and being close to one´s local habitat. 

Luminous Matter centers around depictions of wildflowers and weeds found closer to the artists´ native surroundings. The exploration through the camera has led the duo´s interest in several wildflower species found along the roadside in Sweden – flowers so common in the Swedish scenery, that they almost go unnoticed in our collective consciousness. Or have we just not seen enough wildflowers documented on our screens to interpret them as desirable? 

The three represented plant species Smörblomma (Buttercup), Hundkäx (Cow Parsley) and Midsommarblomster (Woodland Geranium) blossom and peak during the summer solstice of the Northern hemisphere, a period associated with almost constant light throughout the day and night. As a glitch in our reading of the image, the wildflowers are depicted in a manipulated full nighttime scenario as opposed to the images of the flowers that we are used to seeing.

The title Luminous Matter points far out in cosmos and eternity, contrasting the fragile, short-lived flowers. By throwing retro-reflective powder into the scene and illuminating it with the flashgun, the artists superimpose an explosion of glowing particles resembling popular space imagery or an exploding nebula from the NASA archives. The traces of the powder emphasize and highlight the delicate structures that otherwise go unnoticed and navigate the chaos that makes up ordinary roadside vegetation.