Camilla Edström Ödemark was born and raised in Åland and today divides her time between Åland and her studio in Oslo. She is a professional visual artist specialising in sculpture and drawing, where wood is her main material. During Konstrundan 2025, Camilla will be working in Timmerhuset in Hammarland, where she creates sculptures using traditional timbering techniques.
She has also been given a piece of ash felled at the cemetery in Hammarland, which she will work with during the summer. "It feels great to be able to work with wood that has grown at the final resting place of several generations of Hammarlanders," says Camilla. "At the same time, there is a certain pressure to really do the material justice."
In her art, Camilla endeavours to highlight the wood's own stories and is particularly fascinated by its decomposition process - the biological transformation from one state to another.
"Poetry tends to emerge from what at first glance may seem banal and simple," she says, reminding us that nothing really disappears - everything is resurrected in new forms - which she sees as a kind of natural magic.
Camilla says that her background, with roots both in Åland and in mainland Finland, has strongly influenced her. Her mother was born in Malung, which is located in the Swedish Finnskogen forest, and several members of her family have travelled across the border between Sweden, Sweden and Finland in various ways. The sculptures she is working on in Timmerhuset are part of a joint exhibition centred on Finnskogen, where all the participating artists share a connection to the place. The exhibition will be shown at Kunstbanken in Hamar, Norway, at the end of the year.
For Camilla, it was always obvious that art would play a central role in her life - but the road there was far from straightforward, she says. After graduating from Åland's lyceum, she tried out various art programmes in Sweden before finally applying to and being accepted by Konstfack. When she graduated as an artist, she ran a gallery in Stockholm with some friends. She was also part of Galleri CC in Malmö for a while before moving on to Oslo, where she later took her master's degree.
One of the main reasons Camilla chose to return to Åland is that the environment plays a crucial role in the creative process. A studio in the city offers fewer, or perhaps different, opportunities than a spacious studio in the countryside. For Camilla, the local connection provides a sense of security and peace, which is important for her work. She emphasises that all the circumstances surrounding a person affect how they express themselves - the place and time of creation shapes the expression and appearance of the art.
Right now, Camilla is driven by the challenge of working on such a monumental piece as the one she is planning for the summer. The format is new to her, as the sculptures will be as much as 3-4 metres high - a scale she has not previously worked in.
About the choice to work in Timmerhuset, Camilla says that she has a personal connection to the place. Growing up in Kattby on Åland, she had her best friend in Mörby, and on her way there she often cycled past Timmerhuset and was fascinated by its beautiful appearance. Today, the building houses several different businesses, including local woodworkers. When the opportunity arose to rent one of the spaces for the summer, she didn't hesitate to take it.
"I hope that visitors during Konstrundan come with curiosity," says Camilla. "That I can share the techniques and materials I work with, and that great meetings give rise to new thoughts."