Ingela Ihrman

Ingela Ihrman investigates the experience of being alive through sculpture, performance, video, and text. Using handmade sculptural costumes, she embodies other living beings, exploring both the capabilities and limitations of her own body. Her work questions the ways humans categorize, manipulate, and idealize nature, while simultaneously engaging with a nostalgic longing for its perceived purity and originality. Blending humor with intensity, Ihrman examines identity, belonging, and human relationships with other life forms. Her practice reflects the emotional spectrum of daily life—desire, longing, intimacy, and solitude—while considering the pleasures and challenges of coexistence. By donning crafted costumes made from simple, familiar, or recycled materials, she transforms into creatures such as night-blooming waterlilies, giant clams, or other imagined organisms. Through these immersive performances, Ihrman investigates our connections to the natural world, highlighting the interplay between vulnerability, transformation, and the act of inhabiting both human and non-human forms. ...