Eyes as Big as Plates is the ongoing collaborative project between the Finnish-Norwegian artist duo Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth.
"The ongoing photography series Eyes as Big as Plates started out in 2011 studying personifications of nature and folkloric explanations of natural phenomena. A decade later it has evolved into a continual search for modern human’s belonging in nature, taking the Norwegian-Finnish artist duo Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen to fifteen countries on a quest to understand our relationship with our surroundings.
The series features portraits produced in collaboration with fishermen, zoologists, plumbers, opera singers, housewives, artists, academics and ninety-year-old parachutists, retired wrestling coaches, pub patrons, Sami reindeer herders, Aboriginal uncles, kantele players, librarians, wild boar hunters, and surfers across four continents. Part sculpture, part installation and part photography, Ikonen and Hjorth work together from beginning to the end of the process with their different complementing skills. As the project continues to cross borders, it also aims to rediscover a demographic group too often labeled as marginalized, and to generate new perspectives on who we are and where we belong. By exploring the possibilities that lie in the potential of art to propel actionable system changes, the project continues to cross cultural and geographical borders, with the thematic horizon opening up towards ideas connected to the increasingly multi species desynchronisation that is currently unfolding across ecosystems and communities.
Riitta Ikonen & Karoline Hjorth have collaborated since 2011 on publications and projects includingEyes as Big as Plates (ongoing), The World in London (2012), Time is a ship that never casts anchor (2014–18), Signal, Lights, Connected for the Pyeong Chang Winter Olympics (2018),TEDMED Talk 2020, and Finnskogen Understories (ongoing). Finnish artist Riitta Ikonen received her MA from the Royal College of Art in 2008. Norwegian photographer, artist and writer Karoline Hjorth received her MA from the University of Westminster (London) in 2009". Text provided by artists.
'Eyes as big as Plates 2' is a newly released book available to purchase online directly through the artists' website.
