Hardcore Gentleness
Hair, copper
Shibari rope made from human hair
Ritual (2022)
Concrete sculpture with embedded human hair
Concrete sculpture with embedded human hair
Shibari rope made from human hair
Shibari rope made from human hair
video installation
Curated by Anita Kodanik and Brigit Arop
Hardcore Gentleness unravels like a tangled ball of yarn, moving through intimacy, control, and sexuality with the experimental flair of J Dilla’s “So Far to Go,” where the phrase hardcore gentleness is borrowed. The first duo exhibition by Maria Izabella Lehtsaar and Sarah Nõmm reflects on girlhood, self-image, mental health, and the dance between gaining and relinquishing control.
Both artists share a tactile sensitivity to material: from soft heart-shaped chains in pastel hues to thick ropes braided from human hair. The works stage opposites – light and heavy, soft and hard, safe and unsafe, asking how material and bodily work can navigate trauma, tradition, and desire, and how those desires find community. Resisting feminist and queer aesthetics being reduced to fetish or surface, Hardcore Gentleness insists on a deeper look at longing for safety, self-connection, and joy – even when joy is tangled with rage, confusion, or the urge to dance.
You’ve come so far – you’ve got so far to go.