Frigörelsens tid : En analys av Edna Martins sena verk och relationen mellan textilt skapande och fri konst

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines the late work of Swedish textile artist Edna Martin (1908–2003) between 1977 and 1991, a period she conceptualized as her era of liberation. The study investigates how her late artistic practice narrows the historical gap between textile craft and art. By focusing on the decades following her retirement from prominent institutional roles, this research addresses a significant gap in Swedish art history, highlighting Martin’s work as a contemporary artist. The analytical framework combines materialism and modernist art theory to evaluate how the boundary between craft and art is challenged by Martin. Utilizing Jane Bennett’s concept of material agency, the study analyses the materials as active agents or aktants. Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of frames apart is applied to explain how objects achieve artistic elevation once they have been freed from practical function. Furthermore, the analysis engages with Clement Greenberg’s modernist focus on the artwork’s physical presence, alongside Cilla Robach’s theories on the development of free form in Swedish design. The empirical analysis categorizes Martin’s work into three distinct groups: Vakare (weather-worn marker flags), woven works embedded in fishnets, and loose-form embroideries. In the Vakare series, discarded flags from fishing villages are mounted behind archival conservation veils. This institutional framing strips the objects of utility, elevating material decay and vulnerability over technical perfection. In her woven works, such as Timjan and Alvaret, Martin ties linen yarns and silk strips into fishnets to create three-dimensional reliefs. These works interact dynamically with the physical environment, using literal texture and volume rather than pictorial illusion to evoke sensory and tactile experiences. Finally, her expressive embroideries feature raw, unravelled thread work against light textile backdrops, creating a weightless interplay of depth and shadow that projects into the viewer's space. The thesis concludes that Edna Martin successfully bridges the divide between textiles and fine art by liberating her materials from decorative and functional obligations she disrupts traditional textile conventions. By granting materials their own agency, emphasizing spatial presence Martin demonstrates that the textile medium operates effectively as an autonomous art object capable of conveying complex existential and philosophical meaning.