Ruby Bateman is a visual artist, working and living in London. Her work is often self-referential, (re)depicting and translating imagery across different materials and processes. She uses film, photography, drawing, and painting to discuss her personal and political relationship with (institutionalised) motherhood.

Artist statement:

Iceland’s legacy for storytelling, Norse poetry, mythology, and folk law are renowned worldwide, sparking imaginations for centuries. The Fish Factory residency immersed me into Iceland’s dramatic landscape, the generous spirit of Icelanders, and their culture and language. I was able to write, draw and film a piece of allegorical fiction inspired by the absurdity of Norse Mythology, the Stöðvarfjörður mountains, and my passion for maternal politics.

This has been a truly transformative experience, opening myself up to the written word in a new and more literal way. Before I had been exploring storytelling in more abstract terms on film, often drawing on myself as the subject. Now I feel I have progressed into a more imaginative mode of language, one that can relate to my interests and concerns for (institutionalised) motherhood without having to put myself so centrally. What emerged from my month’s residency was a super 8 film, a collection of sculptures, film photography, and a series of ink drawings: originally storyboards for my film, but became works in their own right. The trust and freedom I was given at the Factory allowed me to create work more prolifically and without expectation or inhibition. I was able to weave together a fully formed collection of work that commented on patriarchy and its suppression of women’s reproductive and intellectual knowledge throughout history.

Thank you, Ruby! :)

// Check the interview on Youtube //

Nina Schipoff is a German interdisciplinary artist, living and working in Geneva, Switzerland. She graduated from the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) in 2008 and obtained a postgraduate diploma in painting from the Gevena School of Stage Set Design in 2009. Nina articulates her art around the concepts of space, time, movement, and light with a specific focus on the interactions between humans and nature in the accelerating world. She questions the invisible and visible traces of the interaction between man and landscape and their ecological and geopolitical impact on the world.

At the very beginning of her stay in Fish Factory, Nina spent a lot of her time outdoors getting to know her new home. This motivated her to realize a series of photos titles the ”Untold Stories”. She also enjoyed exploring and integrating sculpture as a new medium into her work practice. This finally lead to the installation ”in the land of magic volcanos and golden waterfalls”, completing her photographic narration.

Once her curiosity had been responded to and her mind has settled a bit, she realized her main project, the development of motivational hypnosis for a sustainable future in a safer world. Nina, who is also a trained hypnotist, found a lot of inspiration on her discovery trips through Icelandic nature as well as in scientific environmental research.

Thanks Nina! :)

More of her work can be found here:

Anna Zadra is an Austrian conceptional artist and stage designer. After studying theatre-, film- and media studies at Vienna University, she completed her studies at the University of Mozarteum Salzburg with a stage- and exhibition design diploma. Her work revolves around the relationship between humankind and its surroundings. While focussing on man’s location in space, she tries to collect and display its materialistic and haptic aspects in her artistic research.

Anna’s studio work process, though thoroughly backed with research in literature and applied science, is highly immanent. Materials derived from the surroundings of her current workplace form the base of her artwork. She then enhances her conceptual and artistic work by experimenting with different materials and media and adds her personal perception of the space surrounding her. Anna characterizes her work by playing with spacial dimensions and adding a high level of materiality and meticulous precision to it.

During her residency at the Fish Factory Anna tried to grasp the relationship Icelanders have with their nature. While observing their behavior and lifestyle within the exceptional landscape of Iceland, Anna tried to gain consciousness for all living things around her. She went on several hikes in the surrounding mountains in order to experience the natural forces that work on the island with her own body. Her experiences in Iceland have fuelled her interdisciplinary research and enhanced her inspiration for her Ph.D. studies subject “The exhaustion of space in the area of the Anthropocene”.

Thank you, Anna! :)

// Check the interview on Youtube //

Mallory is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer from New York working out of Brooklyn. Mallory’s work consists of printmaking as well as wearable textiles; including drawing, painting, and small editions of clothing. She completed her B.F.A in Printmaking at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 2018 and have been working on independent projects and freelance work since; while attending residency programs and developing a clothing brand and collaborative screen printing business.

During her time at the Fish Factory, Mallory worked on a large-scale linen picture book, cooking, and drawing shared domestic spaces. This work came from thoughts of collectivity and how it relates to language, food, and handmade processes. Her main focus during my time at the factory was a latex coated linen book called Three as well as a short written manuscript, Tomorrow Morning.

Artist Statement:

Through multiple mediums and disciplines, I am interested in relationships. My primary focus is defining relationships, including romantic, familial, and other interpersonal relationships as they relate to relationships on a formal level. I am studying the butterfly effect; the way that small things can have an impact on larger systems. Three is a sculptural book about butterflies and feelings (the to the touch kind). I have noticed that these qualities of life often evade language; they exist more as sensations. Three exists within this space as a part of a whole; my work includes created objects as well as interactions – potlucks and parties or a video call. The translation of thoughts can vary visually across different languages but reduced they are all pictures made by sensitive human hands. The language within Three bridges the gap between language in its literal sense (thoughts as symbols as letters as words as sentences) and nonverbal exchange.

I am interested in the qualities of life that make it all kind of feel like it’s worth something. As things become more and more automated and clean and geometric sometimes the human touch can be lost. There is so much time spent trying to mimic the human touch that could be spent making a big dinner for your friends and family or holding someone really tightly. I am not yet willing to eliminate the more luscious qualities of life at the expense of more measured order (cleaner, faster, less waiting, less wondering, less mess). I would like to reframe the mess, frame it specifically so that it is viewed, and reframe touch so that the results of it are beautiful without retouch.

Thank you, Mallory! :)