Engaging sculpture, sound, and meticulous craft, Nils Alix-Tabeling approaches artmaking as a process of unearthing. He gravitates toward semi-buried narratives—letters smuggled from prison, marginal political writings, mythologized biographies—and reassembles them into speculative portraits that restore intimacy to figures historically flattened or misread. This attention to overlooked or misrepresented individuals forms the emotional spine of his practice: an ongoing attempt to counteract erasure through imaginative revival.

Alix-Tabeling keeps personal and collective storytelling deliberately entangled. By beginning with deeply specific or “niche” histories, he opens pathways for unexpected resonances—trusting that precision, rather than generality, generates broader connection. His craft-based approach creates multiple entry points, while his “punkish” irreverence toward technique animates objects with a sense of precarious life, as if they were picking themselves up in front of us. Within Mourning and Melancholia, these sensibilities converge: mourning as summoning, melancholy as activation, and art as a site where forgotten voices can cohabit, speak, and transform us.