Nathalie Djurberg's 'Claymations'.

Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg's intricately constructed claymation films are both terrifyingly
disturbing and artlessly sweet.

The new works created for the Venice Biennale explore a surrealistic Garden of Eden in which all that is natural goes awry.

She exposes the innate fear of what is not understood and confronts viewers with the complexity of emotions.

Nathalie Djurberg was awarded the silver lion for a promising young artist at the Venice
Art Biennale 09.

(http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/6886/nathalie-djurberg)

Research Djurberg's work in order to answer the following questions;

1. What do you understand by the word 'claymation'?

Claymation is the term given to animation made through the use of clay models. These models often have interchangeable parts such as different arms/eyes/ears etc to depict different actions or emotions. The models are repositioned for every frame of a shot, so that when all the frames are compiled together and played as a film, it shows movement. It is similar in nature to 3D animation.

2. What is meant by the term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden'? and 'all that is natural goes awry'?

The term 'surrealistic Garden of Eden' implies the land is a paradise, as in the bible the garden of eden was seen as a utopia, however the garden in Djuerbergs work is quite odd or dream like, almost like something you'd see in a Lewis Caroll novel. 'All that is natural goes awry' refers to the oddities in her claymations, the strange disturbing distortions that carry on in her films.

3. What are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurberg confronts us with?

Does 'disturbing' count as an emotion? Djurberg's work seems to confront the viewer with several emotions, among which sexuality seems to appear quite heavily. The scene depicting Adam and Eve's first meeting where Eve strips Adams skin off down to the wire/bone before embracing him is a good example of this. There's almost a Fear-like aspect to her work, there's so much strange and unknown things going on, its impossible not feel uneasy.

4. How does Djurberg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work?

As mentioned earlier, the sexuality element added to innocent children's stories takes the innocence right out of the work. Children's stories are seen as these happy, perfect stories with happy endings and morals, whereas exposing a child to Djurberg's work would likely result in heavy emotional scarring, like giving a child a teddy bear then ripping its head off in front of them.

5. There is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing. Why do you think this has come about?

I think it stems somewhat from what is often referred to as "sheeple", the idea that everyone these days in society are bland, dull and far too similar to each other. Artists and designers try to be unique, to break the norms, to make something different that makes people stop and think, and I think. Taking something sweet and innocent that you remember from your childhood then distorting it into something ugly is almost like growing up, as a child the world is perfect, you're the center of the world and can be anything you want, however as you grow older, you realise the world is anything but perfect, its ugly and corrupt, its painful and harsh.

6. In your opinion, why do you think Djurberg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale?

I think Djurberg's work is so interesting and was chosen for the Venice Biennale because of just how disturbing her work really is. It makes you feel uneasy gazing around at the eerie plants and sculptures in her display, then watching the disturbing videos completes the total uneasy feeling of it all. It makes people both simultaneously want to stop and watch, and want to run and hide, which I think is quite hard to achieve.

7. Add some of your own personal comments on her work.

I think Djurberg's work is very disturbing, watching videos of walk-throughs of her display as well as the claymations themselves, its almost like something is trying to get into my head, something trying to eat away at the small innocent child locked away somewhere in the depths of my mind. Watching her work I find it incredibly interesting, especially after my previous animation course, however fighting the urge to close the window gets a bit hard after a while.

'Experiment' 2009 Venice Biennale

'Turn into Me' 2008