Anna Maria Hedman
Contemporary sculptor
Expanded Sculptural Practice
I create sculptural objects and spatial works developed through long-term processes.
My practice investigates vulnerability and human relations through sculptural and ceremonial forms.
The work emerges from lived encounters, approached through sculptural and ceremonial forms.
Many works function as present-day altars — for the body, the home, or shared spaces.
I work with an intuitive, critical examination of vulnerability and the structures that shape our lives and cultures. My art practice covers tactile sculptural objects and social sculpture.
Making structures become visible through materials, communication, relationships and the spaces we inhabit is part of my exploration and sculptural practise. The creation extends from making objects to creating spaces for encounters, questioning established systems and making room for alternative ways of thinking and being.
The spaces and platforms I create for other artists are also part of my own artistic practice – social sculptures in which I experiment with structures, relationships, communications and possibilities.
Objects of Ritual
Ceremony and ritual are also part of my sculptural practice. From superstition, witchery and gratefulness I create magically induced jewellery to hand-held sculptures, I create objects that invite touch, contemplation and personal meaning. Always exploring the relationship between the object and the person holding or wearing it, inviting everyday gesture to become something ceremonial.
From time to time, I release small collections of sculptural objects and jewellery. New pieces will be announced here.
manifesto
manifesto
manifesto
Vulnerability
is not a subject.
It is a condition
I work from.
The work takes shape
where human reactions shift.
Where relations
produce expectations
that are fragile,
exposed,
or unresolvable.
I search for structures
that can hold
what does not resolve.
There is a place
for everything.
A form.
An embrace.
A connection.
Sculpture is not representation.
It is spatial
and relational.
Through sculptural
and ceremonial forms,
I work alongside
research,
emotion,
and superstition.
Present
with material conditions.
Many works take the form
of contemporary altars.
Not symbols —
functional structures.
Resistant
to closure.
They invite
tactility.
Encounter.
Duration.
The work remains open.
An object.
A space.
For repetition.
For lived experience.
Writing
in my practice is not dokumentation.
It is a way of staying with what cannot be resolved — and of allowing form, material and ritual to emerge from lived experience
Unresolved Encounter
One morning, while studying silver-smithing in London, I witnessed an accident on a bus and invited myself to take part – which led to an intimate and urgent encounter with a stranger that never reached closure.
This piece of writing traces how that moment stayed with me long after the disruption happened, and how it initiated an ongoing inquiry into vulnerability, witnessing and the need for ritual forms of holding and care. → Full text at Writing
Approaching sculpture
I approach sculpture
as a spatial and relational practice.
Through material and time,
the work searches for alternative resolutions
forms that can be entered
and lived with.
Staying attentive to
bodies,
spaces,
and their conditions.