Workshop 8︎︎︎ Ebb and Flow, dinner event, DETRITI, Gothenburg (2025).
On April 16th, we gathered at Detriti Gallery for a communal dinner hosted with Garden Loops, alongside the duo exhibition Ebb and Flow by Poppy Bell and Mercè Torres Ràfols.
Over a Swedish west coast–inspired meal of local seaweeds and blue mussels, we shared myths and stories from the archipelago, as well as personal memories and reflections on our relationships with the ocean.
This event was made with support of Kultur Ungdom.
Over a Swedish west coast–inspired meal of local seaweeds and blue mussels, we shared myths and stories from the archipelago, as well as personal memories and reflections on our relationships with the ocean.
This event was made with support of Kultur Ungdom.
Photos: Anna Wöhler
Ebb and Flow is a duo exhibition by artists Poppy Bell and Mercè Torres Ràfols. This show brings together Bell’s Above Below project and Ràfols’ Frostsprängning, two interrelated explorations of how landscapes hold memory, evolve over time, and respond to human and non-human forces alike.
Poppy Bell’s Above Below, developed in collaboration with the architect-run collective MISC. (Karl Åhlund, Matthew Tang, Frans Herklint, and Poppy Bell), is a project consisting of 3D-printed clay modules intended for blue mussels to settle in new habitats shaped by human hands but transformed by marine life over time. These sculptural forms deform and evolve through seasonal cycles, with each generation of marine organisms layering new life upon the structure.
In Frostsprängning, Mercè Torres Ràfols turns her lens to the coastline. Inspired by an ancient Gaelic myth, she explores the idea that the landscape itself mourns: that cracks in the rocks open when someone is lost to the sea and close again after welcoming the body home. Through photography and text, Ràfols unearths the relationship between myth, memory, and geological formations.
Ebb and Flow invites viewers to engage with the space as something mutable and responsive, something that holds our actions, our histories, and our hopes. Through mussel shells and clay and cracks, the exhibition offers an angle on how landscapes remember, and how we might learn to listen.
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Poppy Bell’s Above Below, developed in collaboration with the architect-run collective MISC. (Karl Åhlund, Matthew Tang, Frans Herklint, and Poppy Bell), is a project consisting of 3D-printed clay modules intended for blue mussels to settle in new habitats shaped by human hands but transformed by marine life over time. These sculptural forms deform and evolve through seasonal cycles, with each generation of marine organisms layering new life upon the structure.
In Frostsprängning, Mercè Torres Ràfols turns her lens to the coastline. Inspired by an ancient Gaelic myth, she explores the idea that the landscape itself mourns: that cracks in the rocks open when someone is lost to the sea and close again after welcoming the body home. Through photography and text, Ràfols unearths the relationship between myth, memory, and geological formations.
Ebb and Flow invites viewers to engage with the space as something mutable and responsive, something that holds our actions, our histories, and our hopes. Through mussel shells and clay and cracks, the exhibition offers an angle on how landscapes remember, and how we might learn to listen.
