Resident from September 1, until December 1, 2024, and from February 1 to 28, 2025
Into Niilo is a jewellery designer with a background in fashion, who is known for their innovative approach to material, techniques and media. Their work is deeply connected with personal experience and tends to contain dark humour and surrealistic elements. Even though their main passion remains jewellery, Into’s practices spread along different areas, such as visual art, graphic and video.
Into's artistic journey is characterised by an exploration of the body and body related items as a therapeutic answer to dysmorphia. This exploration has let to them thinking about theme’s, such as physicality, psychology, philosophy and even astronomy. During their research Into discovered the power of political and social themes through their work, something they would like to continue.
At DIVA, Into Niilo wants to establish a new series that goes deeper into political statements, continuing the themes from previous projects. Their previous work has researched hidden forms of protest through puzzles, coding and materials that reveal hidden messages. In this new series, Into will experiment with word games, light reactive materials and different coding systems to create art that focuses on critical political and social matter, but at the same time still holds onto an element of revealing. Through the residency they want to present contemporary art, specifically jewellery, in a way that calls on involvement from the audience and brings reflection.