Between Art and Science features Johanna Zellmer’s work in conversation with new works by Edwards+Johann. The exhibition delves into the intersection of art, science and humanity.
Johanna Zellmer
Born in 1968 in Germany, Johanna Zellmer lives and works in Sweden, Germany and Aotearoa/New Zealand. She completed a goldsmith’s apprenticeship in Frankfurt, Germany in 1991, and an MA (Visual Arts) in metalsmithing at the Australian National University in 1999, and was granted Sweden’s esteemed IASPIS residency in 2019.
A lecturer at Dunedin School of Art from 2000-22, she completed a PhD in Fine Arts at Massey University, Aotearoa, New Zealand in 2024. She is currently Senior Lecturer, HDK-Valand (Academy of Art & Design), Gothenburg University, Sweden. Her work is held in public collections globally.
Zellmer’s work in this exhibition is primarily made from used DNA sequencing slides – to defy the biopolitical standardization of life. As technology advances at great speed, the materials become obsolete and in turn, immensely precious – each piece exists as an irreproducible artwork. In 2024 a selection of these works was sought for inclusion in the exhibition Madrugada – Jewelry and the Politics of Hope at MUDE Design Museum, Lisbon (PT).
Her research operates at the intersection of ethics, science, applied arts, the application of technology and biopolitics. Both genomics and body adornment are instruments of identity construction as statements of politics and humanity. Mrs Zellmer posits the experience of her work, primarily made from DNA sequencing tools used for the administrative enhancement of life, as a resistance to the biopolitical standardisation of life and self.
With a view to the ethical challenges of biotechnology, the affective encounter of Mrs Zellmer’s work raises questions about standardised social and cultural practices and the resulting hierarchies, separations, and power relationships in Aotearoa and beyond. Her research projects are published by Springer Nature and her work is held in public collections internationally.
EDWARDS+JOHANN are Ōtautahi-based and have been working in tandem since 2007. Building an impressive oeuvre over this time, the duo has been a finalist in all major New Zealand Art Awards, winning the NZ Painting & Printmaking Award in 2016. They have been invited Artists in Residence in France, Scotland, Switzerland and Aotearoa, and were also selected the inaugural artists for the Volcanic Artist Residency in Whakatāne in 2018. Their latest residency project at Sutton House/Ōtautahi facilitated the development of new sculptural works for their exhibition Mutabilities – Propositions to an Unknown Universe shown at The Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū (13 September – 16 February 2025).
As visual storytellers they are interested in the unseen, the untold, the unfinished, the unpolished and the uneasy. Most of their works develop and evolve along a seam which is a point of connection but also a space of friction, tension and inevitable fragility. This territory reflects a basic human condition… to connect, work, play and test the space they inhabit in order to grow… and deal with crisis.
Edwards+Johann works included in Between Art & Science include Geomorphic Acts and Geomorphic Conversations. Another take and flow on from the volcanic artists’ residency project in Whakatāne, the works interweave sculpture with photography, painting and drawing. Strange concretions made from both natural and unnatural materials, create painterly, protruding and unruly shapes. Evolving in a lab-like experimental modus, they reveal what is not known, not quite here, has not fully formed yet. Vulnerability, change, transience, permanence and the precariousness of life are at play here.