Sabrina Raaf is a Chicago-based artist who works in both experimental sculptural media and photography. At a first glance the construction and design of her machines is what hooks the viewer. But soon one realizes that there is always a concept behind each of them that is just as strong. Raaf produces creative machines - machines that independently make art based on some sort of input or interaction from viewers. It is clear that Raaf enjoys the work of constructing these machines. But it is the interaction between the machines and views that is crucial for her art to truly come alive.

At Mejan Labs Sabrina Raaf will show two installations, Grower and Lost, together with four photos from the Test People series.

Grower is a robot that paints individual green blades of grass on one of the walls in the exhibition space. The result looks like a mix of a diagram, a minimalist painting and a cross-section of a lawn. The blades are each painted in different heights according to the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the room. This means that the height of the “grass” is indicative of the Grower frequency that visitors enter the exhibition space - as all humans inhale oxygen and exhale CO2 naturally in breathing. The more visitors are present, the higher the grass is “grown” by the Grower. The similarities with real grass are of course no coincidence as all plants need CO2 to grow and live.

Lost is a sculptural installation including a small rover carrying a wireless camera surveying a surface of ferrofluid inside of a idealized crater. Ferrofluid is a magnetic liquid capable of standing up in gravity-defying spiky formations. The image of the wireless camera is transmitted in real time to a video projection in the space, giving the viewer a close up of the alien landscape from the rover’s point of Lost view. This is Raaf’s homage to Polar Lander, a rover that crashed on the surface of Mars in 1999.

The Test People photographic series “documents” a future time when scientists first discover how to give humans the ability to control gravity. The images are of the test subjects used by these future scientists in order for them to better understand how this power can be used safely in the prevalent decaying architecture of 20th century.

Further information contact curator Björn Norberg, tel: +46.708.82.58.73, bjorn(at)mejanlabs.se

URL