Åsa Dybwad Norman
About Åsa Dybwad Norman
My name is Åsa Dybwad Norman. Since January 2023 I work as Senior Lecturer of Textile Art at the Master’s Programme at the Department of Crafts and Fine Arts at the University of Gothenburg. Previously I have worked as a guest lecturer at HDK Valand Campus Steneby, Konstfack in Stockholm and Linköping University, among others.
The general themes of my artistic practice revolve around how and under what conditions practical knowledge takes its place in contemporary society. I work with exhibitions, workshops, seminars, teaching and text. In my artistic projects my primary media are textile techniques such as embroidery and appliqué, but the final results are often multi-material installations. Even though my practice applies a conceptual perspective on textile materials and methods, I also treat these as carriers of a long political and cultural history of physical experiences and relationships. In search of subversive currents, I follow the temporal movement of the textile materials.
Over the years I have often returned to collective practices, for example through the arts and crafts collective Den Nya Kvinnogruppen (The New Women’s Group). Since 2015 I run the research project De viljefulla textilarbetarna (The willful textile workers) with craft artist and researcher Frida Hållander, Ph.D. The project has taken on different forms over the years, as in an international conference during Stockholm Craft Week in 2020, and an exhibition at Mint at the ABF house in Stockholm. The project explores issues surrounding Swedish textile industry and its global effects, both historically and in our own time.
I am interested in different forms of embodied knowledge that challenge the concepts of art and crafts. In addition, I always try to make space for critical pedagogical discussions within the projects I participate in. Learning and research are integral parts of arts and crafts for me. The way in which objects, concepts and relationships are developed and negotiated can be as interesting and informative as the final results. I am of the conviction that craft-based knowledge plays a decisive, albeit often overlooked, role in understanding power structures on a societal level, as well as in understanding which types of bodies and identities these power structures allow.
In terms of sustainable pedagogical strategies, a caring way of undertaking collective artistic and pedagogical processes and methods is especially important to me. Managing to create inclusive and permissive collective work environments at the university – in workshops, seminars and examinations alike – is pivotal for the quality of education.