Urban flotsam (2022) is a work created for the exhibition „AU CHARBON
Design in a Post-Carbon Age“, curated by Giovanna Massoni and Amandine David
at Centre d´innovation et de design au Grand-Hornu, Belgium
The artist Ulrike Mohr collected street wood by walking through the streets in Berlin during the past two years. Especially during Lock-down, Berliners cleaned out their apartments. Often those materials found themselves in the streets for take away. The artist took several pieces of used cabinet doors, wooden boxes, old shelf boards and planks. She cut the findings into very thin strips of wood and carbonized them. Formerly a compact board with visible signs of use, the charring process transforms the random object into something unknown, infinitely durable and yet fragile. Light as feathers, black, gossamer slices float in the exhibition space and form new clusters, delicately skinned in space. Time expands when walking through this delicate material drawing and like a swarm of ribbons they move with every breath of wind.
