CREATIONS

Nikolaj Fondt Salzwedell (they/she/he) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam. Trained as an actor and dancer, their foundation lies within the performing arts, often placing themselves directly into the work as either a literal part of the piece or a metafictional layer of awareness. Throughout time their practice has expanded into different mediums and methods as theatre- and film director and writer.

A recurring characteristic of their work is deconstructing the constellation of experiencing an artwork, making the audience actively aware of what they are experiencing, how they are being manipulated, and engaging them into active participants. It’s a call for transparency in a time where culture of consummation seems to pull us apart from each other and our selves. Stemming from their interdisciplinary background, they often attempt to stretch the nature of mediums and make them bleed into each other, rethinking the possible frame of each work. Their making practice is grounded in slow-burning, mythological and psychological complexities, a combination that attempts to speak less to an intellectual understanding, but rather a subconscious, emotional or spiritual understanding like experiencing a vague memory or a dream.

Salzwedell is focused on creating spaces to observe, approach and go through discomfort in order to do collective repatterning as beings of this world. They work with durational mediums as they regard it as the best possibility to do transformation, nurturing the potential of someone to grow further in spirit. It is a call to surrender one’s self to allow for a shift of the individual and expand a conscious engagement with life, bridging to matters that lie much beyond the surface of human comprehension (and obsessions). This is further emphasized when the immersion of the work is distorted, unveiling the layers behind what is being experienced.

Engaged with the continuous unraveling of the enigma of self, what creates the separation of one ‘I’ to another ‘I’, Salzwedell explores relationality and the existential intricacies as beings of this world. Encouraging them-self and the people who are witnessing to reflect upon their own lives and become aware of life’s temporality, thereby attempting to create bonds between beings and the world we exist within.