Karri A Dieken

My current work involves creating an environment that evokes a sense of memory or nostalgia through a narrative, with relevance to contemporary culture and domestic spaces. I am in search for a common place between societies today and the nostalgic or innocence of the past. Through these processes I am concerned with exploring the social relations and familiarity in domestic environments and past objects. The set or places I create are meant to be a place the viewer can relate to more as an illustration or narrative. The work addresses common issues of placement, self-awareness, use and loss of, emptiness and uncertainty. Along with the cultural and generational disconnect between objects we no longer use.

Formally the work is designed to engage the viewer on an immediate physical level by recreating elements from an actual domestic space. It brings the viewer into the space of the objects, in the hope that it will portray a particular narrative or suggest a time or place that has been lost. The development and creation of my work involves handmade or hand crafted labor intensive process. This relates to the way I grew up making everyday items from scratch out of necessity and accessibility. I have the desire to continue to create handmade items for their quality in contrast to the mass produced.