Sonja Heim

Sonja Heim (*1997) deals intensively with ‚human-animal-object-relationships‘ in her work. The expansive installations form small-scale worlds, formed from elements of craftsmanship or mass industry, such as glass beads or chicken blinders. In doing so, she transfers behavioral patterns or production processes of Western-influenced high cultures and class identities into the exhibition space. Her most recent work, a woven tapestry of glass beads, is based on a pencil drawing sketched by the artist, which was transformed into a digital image via a text-to-image AI (Dall-E) using descriptive words. This in turn served as a template for the creation of a number and letter grid (BeadTool 4), in order to subsequently translate the data obtained, bead by bead, back into a weaving frame. In an impressive way, Sonja Heim stages human-machine cooperation anchored in the process of creation and the transformation of a working-class culture linked to it. The Sisyphean labor of manual craftsmanship contrasts with files created in seconds, emphasizing the inevitable discrepancy between man and machine. Sonja Heim is currently studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the class of Franka Hörnschemeyer.