In Hemuloordi’s video piece Sculptures which are not good enough for Rome, three sculpture figures referencing popular culture discuss their fate in the artist’s imaginary desktop view. Hemuloordi has 3D modelled the characters in the video based on her ceramic works.

Precariat future in a bit reality

Three sculptures looking somewhat lost discuss their stagnant existence in a computer desktop, in a darkly humorous way. The conversation is coloured by Anglicisms and quips, but simultaneously expresses the speakers’ insecurity about their existence. With the name of the piece, the artist refers to a personal sense of inadequacy in relation to art history. In Hemuloordi’s imaginary play, onuments of figurative sculpture on display in Rome act as gatekeepers, who refuse Hemuloordi’s sculpture-characters the right to settle in as part of art-historical tradition.

Finally, the lack of prospects in the video’s initial set-up twists into a delightful tragicomedy; the characters have to get accustomed to the role the artist has given them. The sculptures gather dust in the artist’s digital desk drawer, while Rome remains a mere fantasy. The evergreen meadow of Windows is a widely known landscape, and simultaneously extremely commonplace and banal in meaning. According to the artist, the desktop is a limbo without a way out – a final repository that offers no fulfilment.

A playful encounter with tradition

In her artworks, Hemuloordi utilises aesthetics typical of the post-internet generation, and plays with the tradition of sculpting as well as the visual language of the internet. The artist uses the imagery of classical sculpting in her work, but separating elements from their original context. Hemuloordiraduated from the University of Fine Arts in 2019, and works mainly with ceramics and video.