Death-jackets, 2024

1 meter x 60 cm

Hand embroidery in cotton on life jackets in collaboration with Jonas Jönsson

"Death-jackets" confronts the silent violence hidden within symbols of survival, life jackets. While bright orange has long been synonymous with safety and rescue, this work subverts that assurance. Suspended against a monochromatic wall of deep 'Dictatorship Blue,' two life jackets become vessels of contradiction. Cotton threads, delicately hand-embroidered, connect and entangle the objects like fragile veins or stories untold, linking both pieces in a subtle tension.

Each stitch mourns lives lost at sea, where counterfeit life-saving gear, exploited by smugglers for profit, fails those fleeing war, persecution, and displacement. The life jackets, now adorned with intricate embroidery, blur the line between remembrance and indictment, fragility and violence. The textile practice, soft and precise, invites viewers to reflect on the ways survival itself can be commodified, transformed into objects of betrayal.

Images from the solo exhibition Violence of Documents at Hammarkullen Konsthall, Göteborg, 2024.

Photos: Hendrik Zeitler