Svava Tergesen

Svava Tergesen combines elements of sculpture, collage, and cooking to reimagine experiences of domesticity, gender, and health. Princess Cake, part of the playfully surreal Garnished Sundries series, considers how the pandemic has influenced the way we experience city life, entertainment, and the home environment. The artist’s vibrant colour palette, domestic textiles, and flat lighting take inspiration from the uncanny food photography of the 1950s and ’60s found in cooking books, magazines, and recipe cards. For Tergesen, manipulating food is a whimsical, aesthetic, and subversive gesture. It complicates the task of nurturing family, which upholds narratives of gendered labour within the home. Tergesen considers the use of her large format camera and analogue film to be a kind of plastic wrap—a second skin that preserves the "freshness" of her arrangements, halting the inescapable decomposition of food and textiles. Her camera becomes a thread between photography, sculpture, craft, and cooking.