alvi östgård, a nordic artist

"Somehow it feels as though the soul curls around my spine"
170cm diameter
Icelandic, Scottish and English wool woven on hazel branches. Found sheep’s vertabrae cast in bronze.
Alvi Östgård 2026.

In a meditation in April, the vision of this piece came to me, alongside its title. I didn’t know then that according to several esoteric philosophies, the entering of the soul into the body happens in a downward spiral, mimicking the universes creative principle; that the spiral is at the core of creation.

This resonated in me a second time, when I felt creativity surging through my body in the moment of weaving this piece. When utilising old handcraft techniques such as weaving, the repetitive motions — up, down, side to side — allow my body and spirit to enter a trance-like presence, unjudging, unthinking. What is channeled through the body then, is a pure force who’s origin starts outside oneself. Artmaking, then, makes the artist a conduit to something sacred.

Ancestral rituals, through heritage craft.