The Artling Presents: Giorgiana Theiler's Solo Exhibition at kasa. kaisin., Zurich

In collaboration with kasa. kaisin., The Artling is excited to announce our first exhibition in Europe featuring the young Swiss artist Giorgiana Theiler. Theiler is a South African Italian - born Swiss Artist raised and living in Zurich, Switzerland. She graduated with a BA Hons in Communication Design with a pathway in Photography in 2018. She was scouted by a professor at the Royal College of Art, London and subsequently completed a Masters degree in Information Experience Design in 2020. 

Her recent body of work revolves around the utilisation of information to create an experience of the senses through different design aspects, with colour theory and abstract expressionism as highly significant themes. Giorgiana’s work epitomises the finer detail usually concealed from the naked eye but made visible through technology. In implementing this method, she wishes to add her contribution to the enhancement of personal well-being. She draws her influential energy and inspiration from visual artists such as Gerard Richter, Felipe Pantone, and cultural artists Jeff Koons. 

The exhibition includes works from her "QR-URIOUS", "Expressions", and "Flavours" series. These works will be are on view from 10 March 2022, Monday to Sunday at kasa. kaisin., Talacker 35, 8001 Zürich.

We also had the opportunity to speak to Giogiana to find out more on her artistic practice, her chosen mediums, and her upcoming projects. Scroll down to read more! 

Tell us about yourself and your artistic practice. What has led you to where you are today?

I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, moved to Zurich, Switzerland when I was 8 years old, and then went to University in London when I turned 18 where I studied Photography and Information Experience Design. I am a very shy and introverted person. I'm a Cancerian so the traits of being sensitive, hyper-emotional, loving and protective of people close to me are my full-on personality.

I am dyslexic in math as well as writing, my high school years were a bit of a struggle for me personally and mentally which is probably why I am introverted but it became easier when I was able to do art because that was where I could fully express myself. My artistic practice is very diverse. I love not sticking to one medium and just trying different things. When working I always ask this question “how can I enhance personal-well being through digital technology”. I am all about making people feel better, especially with my friends and family. I don't like seeing them sad, I always try to lift them up and help out as much as I can so I try to portray this in my art too. Being exposed by different artists at the Royal College of Art has a great deal of where I am today. My course had a diverse group of people from different bachelor courses such as jewellery design, scientists, musicians, photographers, and so on. Having that kind of exposure really opened my eyes to not sticking to one medium in art, that you can use very different mediums and in the end, they come together. The pandemic also has a big impact on where I am today because my way of thinking was impacted by the pandemic because everything I had encountered throughout my interactive course had been done with touch, so I had to take a different approach. How could I “touch” the people by making an interactive and fun yet meaningful piece of art?

Your work touches on the topic of mental health; how does this play into your work?

My work deals with mental health through the hidden affirmations that you can access by taking a photo with flash. As soon as you take a picture with flash, you will see the affirmations. Each colour has a different meaning and each affirmation relates to the colour. I use affirmations every day to help with my mental state, they are all over my rooms. I thought it would be interesting to make a piece of art that not only fills up a space in a room but also becomes something you look back on often to remind yourself to take care of your mental health because sometimes people forget to do that for themselves.

How has the pandemic affected your perspective, and how has that translated into your artworks?

Before the pandemic, I was always rushing, kept to my comfort zone, didn’t try new things, and never really sat back and enjoyed the moment. Throughout my life, I never put myself first or dealt with emotional events. My mind was always focused on the future or the past. Since the pandemic, my mind is seeking stability and calmness. For the first time ever, I delved deeply into learning who I am as a person, healing a lot of emotional trauma that's occurred to me, and understanding what I want and don't want in life, especially around whom I surround myself with. In turn, this has made me more open to trying new things, stepping outside of my comfort zone, and learning to put myself first since I was always putting other people's needs first.

This is reflected in my work through affirmations. The affirmations on my pieces were all words that have been spoken to me during therapy sessions, and they are words that I look back on every day to remind myself that I have come a long way and not to give up on myself, because while people and events come and go, in the end, I will be that constant in my life, so I should relish who I am.

What is the inspiration behind the QR code series?

My inspiration for the QR series came from when I was in class at RCA and a student kept on talking about barcodes. When I was searching for barcodes on google, QR codes came up. I was immediately drawn to it because it was an interesting form of an abstract object, yet you can interact with it with your phone. Since my course at the RCA was all about experimenting with different materials and technology, I loved that QR codes had an interactive component, which brought me back to the interactive design aspect of my course. Then came the pandemic, and QR codes started popping up everywhere. While being in lockdown I was watching a master class on Jeff Koons and a bunch of interviews on him during that period. I found myself constantly thinking about what he said about his art, that he creates an experience using old objects or characters that most of us are familiar with from our childhood. Since this has the most symbolic memories, many people will be more drawn to it because they have experienced it in their own lives. This is where it kind of “clicked” for me. QR codes were now becoming the new “thing” we all had to do. We all had to scan for a menu, scan to pay our parking tickets and certificates that would give us our “freedom” were QR codes. So naturally, I thought it could be an interesting design to work with, But of course, it couldn't just be a QR code. During all of this, I was having therapy sessions. Mental health started becoming a topic a lot of people were suffering with, including myself. So during my sessions, I thought it could be interesting to incorporate mental health with a QR code as these were two big topics that were related too in the Covid-19 pandemic.

I thought back to an interactive material that I had used in my course that when you would take a photo with your flash it would light up. These two combinations would work well together as you need a phone to scan the QR code and you need a phone for the material to light up. The material when I tested it couldn't really be seen on paint which is what I loved because it relates to the fact that mental health can be quite a sensitive topic for a lot of people and I didn't want my text to be so prominent but rather subtle. So the QR would be representing the time when the world changed and became “dark”. The light emitted affirmations will relate to that even in the darkest of times happiness is possible and can be found.

You work across a variety of mediums -- are there any that you are most drawn to, or new mediums that you’d like to explore?

I love it when materials seem to be something but aren't actually what they seem to be. I find that very fascinating. Being fooled as a human is fun for me because I believe that not everything is as it appears and that we as humans should expand our horizons and try new things and not take everything in life so seriously, don't forget to have fun!

I would love to explore glass and cement. I think they are both very hard mediums to work with but once you get the hang of it, it can turn into something very beautiful.

You studied “Information Experience Design” – what does that entail? How does design tie into your artwork?

Information experience design is the creative practice of intervening in, designing, and generating experiences of complexity that communicate human, nonhuman, and more-than-human perspectives and realities. We would work actively with living, computational and speculative systems. The works in the course include large-scale installations, immersive digital experiences, radical performances, and living artefacts and ecosystems. Very complex but the most interesting course to take as it has opened my mind to not take the conventional route in art.

The design in my artwork is the QR code, I wanted to take a relatively easy and common method of communication and turn it into a creative design piece.

With your upcoming exhibition in Zurich, what is the key message that you would like viewers to leave with?

I want viewers to take away three key points: you never know what someone else is going through, check in with them occasionally, take care of your mental state, not just your physical state, and never assume you need to know about art in order to enjoy it. I want the viewers to feel excited and stimulated when the words appear, interact with the piece, and by doing that hopefully, my affirmations on my pieces give them a little bit of light in their day.

What are some of the other projects you are working on and what is on the horizon?

I have recently just finished some Covid friendly boarding passes. Instead of your typical Miami to Londondestinations, they are Bedroom to Living Room or Garden to Kitchen “destinations” to take a little bit of a light-hearted look at the lockdown. I am in the very beginning stages of working with someone to do the first “living” QR code that will be made up of 600 people, this will hopefully happen in July this year. I am also working on changing the looks of the QR codes so they are not your traditional squares but make it more non-traditional but still scannable!

I am still very early in my career, at this moment I am mainly looking for goals for the future for myself. For example, I would love to work with brands, maybe some big fashion brands, do collaborations, work with other artists for example Mr Doodle, I love his work and would love to incorporate his style with mine and see where I could take this QR series.

Exhibition Dates: 10 March 2022
Address: kasa. kaisin., Talacker 35, 8001 Zürich

Click here to view the full collection!