About
Olga Rebecka Öhrström Kann is a fine art photographer and Art Historian based in Chicago, IL. Originally from Sweden, Rebecka lives in Chicago, where they received their double BA in Art History and Photography from Columbia College Chicago in May 2022. Their artistic practice involves the process of fracturing and expanding photographs through collage, textiles, and installation to explore the photographic image as a vibrant space in flux. Their work has been shown at Elastic Arts, Chicago, IL, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL, Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, IL, and Public Space One, Iowa City, IA. Their areas of scholarly research include intersections of art and ecology, queer art and theory, and contemporary photography. Kann has previously held the role of curatorial and exhibitions assistant at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and worked as a McMullan and Academic year intern in the Photography and Media Department at The Art Institute of Chicago.
My body of work involves the process of fracturing and expanding photographs through collage, textiles, and installation to explore ideas of ecology and disrupt the image as a stable entity. Drawing inspiration from contemporary photographers the likes of Aimee Beaubien and nineteenth-century textile designers William and May Morris, I aim to push the photograph beyond the frame and utilize floral motifs reminiscent of the arts and crafts movement. My photographs often depict organic materials such as flowers, vegetables, fruit peels, and seeds. These images inhabit a space between abstraction and figuration; in an active state of transformation devoid of stable space for the eye to rest. Through installation, I combine photographic processes with sculptural sensibilities which engage the space they inhabit, such as semi-transparent photographic prints which cast imprints onto the wall as light passes through it or the use of embroidery directly onto the print whose stitches pierce and fracture the image. By the unconventional application of hand-craft techniques and material manipulation, I explore the photographic image as a vibrant space in flux.
Select Solo Exhibitions
2022
Matter in Resonance, Elastic Arts, Chicago, IL
Select Group Exhibitions
2023
Past & Present, Der Greif Magazine in collaboration with the Pinakothek der Moderne and ZIRKA, München, Germany
2022
Undergraduate Seniors Photography Exhibition, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL
2021
4th Midwest Open, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL
Window Into The Virtual, Loosen Art Gallery, Rome, Italy
Abstractions, Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, IL
TooCute!, Public Space One, Iowa City, IA
2018
123-Konstort, Unga Kontoret in collaboration with Index - The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation and Grannskapskontoret, Stockholm, Sweden
Publications
"Rebirth." Kumquat Magazine. 2021
“Celebrations.” Curious Magazine, Vol 4. 2021. pp 24
“The Womxn’s Issue.” Curious Magazine, Vol 3. 2020. pp 87-91
“ISSUE 52.” Local Wolves Magazine. 2017. pp 40-43.
Curatorial Projects
2023
Co-curation of the permanent collection gallery rotation, Photography and Media Department, Art Institute of Chicago, IL, January - June