Nina Canell’s work foregrounds process and synergy, radically questioning material hierarchies and histories. Recognising sculpture as something that runs through and across bodies, Canell contests the understanding of things and materials as invariant, passive, and indifferent. Grounded as much in chance encounters as in close study, her work considers the shared capacity of all materials to transform and overlap beyond the spatio-temporal parameters of an exhibition.

Future Mechanism Rag Plus Two Grams presents a group of sculptures, shown together for the first time, and a new collaborative video. Echoing Simian’s supportive columns, the sculptures conduct themselves as makeshift strings that link the space with the resonant water above and the limestone bedrock below. Knotted with frictional debris such as bottle-caps, coins, or shoe-strings, the scarcely visible assemblages register the vibratory sounds that pass through them: frequency generators provide the pulse to this unlikely ensemble and its music of detrition.

The video constitutes the third iteration of the open-ended work Energy Budget (2017-2024), made by Canell and Robin Watkins. The work centres the electrostatic properties of female ostrich feathers and the reliance upon their ancient engineering in the production of a dust-free car manufacturing environment. Dust, the composite exhaust of all materials, is the near invisible protagonist, grasped and held in place by the feathery presence of a flightless bird.

The exhibition is supported by New Carlsberg Foundation, Knud Højgaards Foundation, The Foundation for Danish-Swedish Cooperation the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and Dansk Video Center.