Sofie Maxime Schwab

Sofie Maxime Schwab
1997
Thesis: another story

The world as it appears seems like a collection of objectivity, in which each object; human, animal, sky, water, and earth tries to transcend from its object-hood to unite with its subjective existence. This transcendence perhaps brings meaning to its being and value to its relationship with the world. 

Two objects that sit comfortably next to each other; breathing, thinking, living, staying timelessly in a process of interaction, communication, and knowing. A consistent urge to find meaning, knowing the neighboring object. Perhaps ‘world’ is the neighbor of every object; you, I, we. The moment ‘I’ either entered the public domain of ‘you’, chose to stay a private ‘we’ or a public collection, is a fragile thread that weaves these complex relationships. It is perhaps language that brought the first stranger into existence, lost in its own multiplicity. Maybe nothing is strange, and everything is just familiar, a part of greater collective world memory.

The works of Sofie Schwab reflect subtle nuances and moments in which relationships come into being and meaning and values are born into the world. A meticulous thinker, Schwab presents objects as beings of associations, continuously expanding and reproducing. Through her works she tries to explore the periphery where objects shift between their autobiographical representations and an object of new potential, moving back and forth from private to public. 

In a way, every object that is present is possibly an autobiography - an embodiment of old and new memories - seeking its origins while living in contentment with its current state. An enigmatic object might be a mysterious myth.

A blanket chest with a peculiar fabric reaches out in its excruciating simplicity, juggling in time and context to find a self-definitive conclusion. Is it mere a woven structure or a story or could it be both? Who defines its existence, the owner, the maker, or anyone who is sharing space with it?

A collection of objects placed with intention, rebelling to be an archive and refusing to relive a lost moment, lounge like the moment itself. Living, ongoing, a conversation, a confession.

In her recent body of works, Sofie Schwab collects and reinterprets objects to find new narratives and their possible realities that could emerge at different moments in time.