Catja Tonberg

Mixed media artist that works with the personal and the political intertwined, using a queer feminist lens that manifests through projection, drawing, installation and performance.

The project Växtvärk / Growing pains is an investigation into the feminization of plants through cultural and scientific naming practices. In this work Tonberg questions how queering can create a shift in this status quo, and explores how we can think differently about these naming conventions and the implications of feminizing the non-human. This work is done with a special focus on queer enjoyment and creating spaces for something other.

"My current project Växtvärk / Growing Pains is a response to my large overarching collection of plants with feminizing names. These names imply, subtle or not so subtle, connections between plants, gender, the human and the non-human. I investigate ways of being with these names and plants in different ways. The act of queering as an artistic method has become my way of approaching this work, in an attempt to create a shift in the status quo and make space for something more than what is."