About Anna-Karin

Anna-Karin Arvidsson is an artist, ceramist active in Småland, Växjö in the field of public art, handicrafts, design, artistic research and teaching. Anna-Karin Has her studio at the Italian Palace in Växjö.

Just like other practices, I use making in various ways to investigate, shape and perhaps understand the world. I am a ceramicist trained at HDK and have thus also chosen a material, clay, which forms the foundation for my exploration. As a potter and artist, I spent a lot of time in the beginning learning how to process the material, clay, understanding how it could be shaped, restrained and given expression. It was about understanding the identity of the material and how I could influence it. It is an investigation that is still ongoing. In parallel, since a few years ago, in my studio at the Italian Palace in Växjö, I have also been working on trying to understand and portray how the material inversely affects human identity, mainly from a perspective with humans as consumers. This means that I am interested in the material’s: origin, sender, recipient, anonymity, directness and how it is part of change both from a societal and posthumanist perspective. It is an exploration that I do individually but as I also have the privilege of working as a lecturer in Design also together with others, such as the public, a second-hand movement, students, an archaeologist and other colleagues at the Linnaeus University in Småland.