Sif Itona Westerberg Makes Queer Animations

Sif Itona Westerberg (1985) is a Copenhagen based artist studying at the Funen Art Academy, Denmark. She works mainly with sculptures, story telling, claymation, stop motion and animation. Sif is a queer artist and she explore and investigate through her work the many ways we tend to identify ourselves through signs of gender, race and sexuality.

Sif Westerberg’s Amazing Claymation Videos

In her claymation video ‘Girl Room’ Sif shows us what is happening in a teenage room, where two girls are discussing their looks and want to re-shape their body. In stead of choosing fitness or a change of diet as ways to gain a better looking body they choose cutting in order to reach their goal as fast as possible.
Her latest solo exhibition, titled ‘Adultlessons’ deals with the conflicts of being in-between childhood and adolescence. Sif writes at her blog:

‘It is especially at this fragile stage between childhood and youth that ones sexuality and gender awareness starts to kick in, or rather is imposed on the child by the surrounding socierty. A state where creating a genderbased identity might seem to be a necessity – or a natural consequence of life – rather than a possibility amongst other possibilities. In connection with adolecence we often talk of “growing up” and hereby implying that the child progresses by adapting an understanding of gender and sexuality, based on rules and norms as prescribed by the society. In this process we expect teenagers to mime the existing norms of the adult world, instead of encouraging them to find their own ways navigation and identification.
First, an 11. min long animation, and the main work of the exhibition, is about these areas of transition and its tensions.’

Meet Sif Westerberg At Queer Festival In Copenhagen

You can meet Sif Westerberg at Queer Festival in Copenhagen July 26 – August 1, 2010, where she will give an artist talk. This year Queer Festival Copenhagen (in Denmark) will be held at a collectively run space called Tegelholm situated at the south harbour of Copenhagen. It is a massive warehouse space, which the floating city use as their project space. Sif will give her talk

Wedensday July 28, 2010, 14:15 – 15:15
at ‘Space 1’ – Tegelholm
Teglholmsgade 28, Copenhagen, Denmark
The event is FREE, and Sif will be talking in English.

Sif will present some queer works that she has done and will do a talk on how she uses art as expression of queer ideas. She invites participants in the workshop to discuss her works with her, and to take part in a more general discussion on how to make art from a queer point of view.