Bio
Fanni Somogyi (Fäni Sho-modji)
Fanni Somogyi is an emerging artist (b. Budapest, Hungary) working in Detroit, Michigan. She creates metal and plant assemblages with steel, aluminum, and at times plants that explore environmental kinship, disconnectedness, and care. Somogyi completed an MA in Curatorial Studies at the Node Center in Berlin in 2023 and earned her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Interdisciplinary Sculpture and Creative Writing in 2019. Her work has appeared in group shows including “Sticky Entanglements” at Transformer DC , “YOU EFF OOH” at Maryland Art Place, and “Wild/Mild” at Vox Populi among others. Somogyi’s sculptures range in scale from tabletop pieces to large-scale installations, including a public sculpture at the Franconia Sculpture Park (Shafer, MN), and the traveling art installation Pop Sheep at Olala Street Festival (Linz, Austria) in 2018 and at Sziget Music Festival (Budapest, Hungary) between 2015 - 2017. Research and writing are also crucial elements of Somogyi’s practice. She has written for BmoreArt Magazine, and her science fiction short story, “Galamb & Tinka” was published in Perennial Press’ Supra Natural Anthology in 2019. Somogyi is currently pursuing an MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Artist Statement
As an interdisciplinary sculptor, themes that I explore are networking systems, hybrid creatures, and speculative ecologies. More specifically, inspired by the formal qualities of organic and inorganic networks I investigate how humans relate to nature, one another, and themselves. I have dwelled on the symbiotic relationship that exists between mycelium, a fungi, and tree roots, and investigated interspecies connections to understand how I affect non-human beings and the ecosystem. We are embedded in many multi-layered systems. We live in specific political, economic, and social systems that are the backdrop to our daily lives. Our microbial world hums within, tree-root-fungal networks stretch out under our feet, and power lines encircle the globe while ocean currents make life possible.
Sculpture has been the format of my choice because I enjoy building in three dimensions and incorporating multiple materials and textures. I have become increasingly obsessed with a high level of finish that is possible through patience, technique, and care. I enjoy metal and polyurethane casting, which are processes of transformation. My objects cocoon within the mother-mold and emerge anew in different often synthetic forms. I’m drawn to steel and aluminum due to their relation to industry and technology, and their oxymoronic ability to be simultaneously durable and malleable. I contrast these materials with cacti, mosses and micro green, which are also resilient. My eerie and uncanny work provides paths for the viewer to travel beyond it into hypothetical and imagined landscapes.
I’m fascinated by entities such as slime mold or cyborgs and how these collaged bodies act as speculative thought exercises. I’m interested in finding sustainable ways of being through empathetic observation of uncanny creatures, and through building speculative ones of my own. This idea of interrelationships grew out of my fascination with, and research into astrobiology, ecology, and science fiction. I’m drawn to hypothesizing about plant intelligence and thinking about what we can learn from other creatures to imagine other ways of being.