Sara Bjarland (b.1981, Helsinki) is a Finnish-Dutch artist living and working in Amsterdam and Ekenäs, Finland. She studied the Slade School of Fine Art in London and at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent. Recent exhibitions include Helsinki Biennial 2025; Shedding Skin, Hopstreet Gallery, Brussels; Stone, Paper, Scissors, Kiasma, Helsinki; Bakakaj, Atletika Gallery, Vilnius; Beaufort Triennial '24; Craft!Now, CODA Museum, Apeldoorn and Trance, Tallinn Art Hall. Her work has been acquired by Kiasma Museum for Contemporary Art (Helsinki), The Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation (Helsinki) and several private collections in Belgium, Finland and The Netherlands.
Visualartistsireland: review (English)
Christies: review (English)
Dagens Nyheter: review (Swedish)
Edit Media: review (Finnish)
L'Echo, review (French)
Volkskrant: Kunstwerk v/d week (Dutch)
Paltzbiennale '24: essay (Dutch)
Mister Motley: review (Dutch)
NRC, review on Beaufort (Dutch)
Kunst is Lang: interview (Dutch)
Hufvudstadsbladet, review (Swedish)
kM magazine: article (Dutch)
Museumtijdschrijft: review (Dutch)
Collector Daily: review (English)
Miroir de L'Art: review (French)
H ART: review (Dutch)
FD Persoonlijk: review (Dutch)
Coucou magazine: review (German)
Monopol Magazine: review (German)
In my work I use discarded materials and objects to materially think through and reflect on my experience of the world and issues like overconsumption, the relationship between nature and culture, labour and care. For my sculptures, installations, photographs and textile works, I collect broken, dirty or half decayed objects I find in my urban surroundings, along the roadside or at recycling facilities; I see these as remnants of our consumer society and as carriers of meaning. I’m also interested in the concept of liminality, and how objects which are dirty or decaying can be unsettling or uncanny because they linger in between the recognisable and the unknown, between the dirty and the clean, between having had a function and being useless, or between the living and the non-living. By including these unwanted, ‘worthless’ materials and objects in my work, I question the hierarchy and value of materials. The element of care is also important, as my work is a way of caring for materials that would otherwise be destroyed.
Sara Bjarland (b.1981, Helsinki) is a Finnish-Dutch artist living and working in Amsterdam and Ekenäs, Finland. She studied the Slade School of Fine Art in London and at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent. Recent exhibitions include Helsinki Biennial 2025; Shedding Skin, Hopstreet Gallery, Brussels; Stone, Paper, Scissors, Kiasma, Helsinki; Bakakaj, Atletika Gallery, Vilnius; Beaufort Triennial '24; Craft!Now, CODA Museum, Apeldoorn and Trance, Tallinn Art Hall. Her work has been acquired by Kiasma Museum for Contemporary Art (Helsinki), The Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation (Helsinki) and several private collections in Belgium, Finland and The Netherlands.
In my work I use discarded materials and objects to materially think through and reflect on my experience of the world and issues like overconsumption, the relationship between nature and culture, labour and care. For my sculptures, installations, photographs and textile works, I collect broken, dirty or half decayed objects I find in my urban surroundings, along the roadside or at recycling facilities; I see these as remnants of our consumer society and as carriers of meaning. I’m also interested in the concept of liminality, and how objects which are dirty or decaying can be unsettling or uncanny because they linger in between the recognisable and the unknown, between the dirty and the clean, between having had a function and being useless, or between the living and the non-living. By including these unwanted, ‘worthless’ materials and objects in my work, I question the hierarchy and value of materials. The element of care is also important, as my work is a way of caring for materials that would otherwise be destroyed.
Visualartistsireland: review (English)
Christies: review (English)
Dagens Nyheter: review (Swedish)
Edit Media: review (Finnish)
L'Echo, review (French)
Volkskrant: Kunstwerk v/d week (Dutch)
Paltzbiennale '24: essay (Dutch)
Mister Motley: review (Dutch)
NRC, review on Beaufort (Dutch)
Kunst is Lang: interview (Dutch)
Hufvudstadsbladet, review (Swedish)
kM magazine: article (Dutch)
Museumtijdschrijft: review (Dutch)
Collector Daily: review (English)
Miroir de L'Art: review (French)
H ART: review (Dutch)
FD Persoonlijk: review (Dutch)
Coucou magazine: review (German)
Monopol Magazine: review (German)