You studied at Hamburg University of Applied Arts and are currently based in Germany. Still, you originally studied at The Slade School of Fine Art in London and Highlands College in Jersey, where you are from. How did your student years shape the artist you are now? How did you move to Hamburg, Germany, in the first place?
It’s impossible to separate my student years from the places where they happened—they were as formative as the education itself. My journey has taken me from the microcosm of Jersey to the sprawling intensity of London and, finally, to the middle ground I’ve found in Hamburg. Each place has shaped my art and my understanding of space, community, and who I am as a person.
Growing up in Jersey, space was communal. The beaches, vistas, and even the agricultural land were shared in ways that felt natural and unspoken. Moving to London for my studies at The Slade School of Fine Art was a cultural shock—it fascinated me with its sexiness and forbiddenness, but it also overwhelmed me with its inaccessibility. Everywhere I turned, there were gates, private property signs, benches to discourage people from sitting for too long, and barbed wire. It felt like everything was both part of something and also just out of reach. My art reflected this tension. I worked with materials of the city like metal, concrete, and anti-climb paint, exploring boundaries and barriers in a space that felt perpetually in rupture, a place that went deep down into the ground and also high above me.
During my time at The Slade, I was constantly in awe of my peers and the vibrancy of the institution. For the first two years, I stayed quiet, trying to go unnoticed and spending hours welding sculptures in the workshops. I coped with London by cycling alone to Hampstead Heath for a swim—a rare moment of calm in a city that often felt overwhelming. I was priced out of London (a city that anyway made me feel like it was cutting people out), and this was a reality that felt devastating but also pushed me to seek new opportunities. Education was deeply ingrained in me, and I was aching to continue studying; it was that hunger that brought me to Hamburg, where I enrolled at HFBK Hamburg.
Hamburg quickly felt like home, and I’m sure it had something to do with the water everywhere—it reminded me of Jersey. In Hamburg, I found what I’d been longing for: access to studios, workshops, and a community. I approached it with a sense of urgency, determined to make the most of every opportunity and stretch that experience out for as long as I could. While I was here, Britain confirmed my suspicions and left the EU. I was able to bend and stretch my citizenship to embrace more of myself, and now I live with double citizenship.
Each phase of my life—Jersey, London, and Hamburg—has taught me something essential. Jersey gave me a deep appreciation for shared spaces and ecological landscapes. London challenged me with its intensity, forcing me to confront boundaries and access in ways that shaped my art. Hamburg has allowed me to find stability. I’ve been able to redefine myself in a new language to find my voice again. It’s become a place that holds me steady—with people who hold me.
I wonder often if I will go home, but then I remember the days I sat on the beach staring at the sea, wishing I could leave. And now, I sit on the riverbank, longing for the ocean.
In your work, you often use existing objects (lamps, ceramic tea sets, etc.) and manipulate them in repetition or displacement. Do you have an archive of such objects, and how do you access them?
I’ve been collecting things since I was five years old—my first collection was marble eggs I found at car boot sales. I’m drawn to objects I deeply care about, ones I feel I need to understand before using them in my work. For me, they hold communal stories and personal histories.
Take the vegetable crockery, for example. It started as something I simply loved, but these objects carry layers of meaning—they speak of the ground, ceramics, eating, and care; they embody the politics of food transport, craft, time, and kitsch; they hold histories of decor and the personal stories of their previous owners.
Once I’ve brought them into the studio, they become material. I spend a lot of time searching for them in second-hand shops or on eBay. I love buying from people who are surprised I want them. We often talk about the person they inherited them from, and they’re moved that I’ll turn them into art. I enjoy those conversations about the objects’ past lives. It feels special to bring them into the studio and reintroduce them to their peers in this new context.
Bringing these objects together in sculptures is my way of rejecting individualism. The work creates a collaborative space where everything is connected. The sculptures are precarious, but their strength lies in their togetherness.
The exhibition Politics of Love opened in November last year in Kunsthaus Hamburg and will run until February this year. It was curated by Dr. Belinda Grace Gardner and Anna Nowak. Tell us about your work (UN)Latch, which is part of the exhibition, and how it communicates with the concept of this group show and the other works in it.
(UN)Latch has a special story. I created it in 2021 in the middle of COVID lockdowns when everything felt uncertain. I was shortlisted for a scholarship and asked to make a work for the jury, but the idea of creating something no one could see felt strange to me. Then, the idea for (UN)Latch came to me in one of those rare moments where your whole body tingles and it felt less like art and more like a solution.
The concept was simple: if the gate was closed, it represented two women—my mum and I—being together. If, for some amazing reason, the show opened, the gate could open too, placing us in a room filled with artwork—a space I was longing for at the time. I built it in my basement at night and installed it for a show that we didn’t know if anyone would see. I understand now that it is a work that needs people with it; it needs to be moved by them; it needs to be physically walked through. The work exists through the conscious movement in the space—something you cannot capture in a photograph.
The invitation to revisit (UN)Latch for Politics of Love allowed me to see it in a new light. The exhibition, inspired by Michael Hardt’s essay, reflects on how emotions like hate and greed dominate our politics, yet love and compassion feel far removed from our times. For me, love is the perfect foundation for community because it holds complexity—it is wavy and full of joy, grief, confusion, and nuance. It allows multiple things to coexist, which feels more important now than ever before.
Installed at the threshold of the space, (UN)Latch invites viewers to enter consciously. When they leave, they decide: do they bring me and my mum back together, or do they leave us apart? The work feels at home in this space, tying its love story back to its origins. In a world of dismantling and crisis, it reminds me of going home to my mum. And bathing in that unconditional love.
TIFF 1, the work you exhibited in Åplus Gallery in Berlin and Galerie Wassermühle Trittau. One of my favorite works of yours, Tiffany glass lamps are built on each other, creating a monumental pillar-like form. It is impossible to not see the decorative qualities of such a work, but there is so much more to it. Can you elaborate?
This is one of my favorite works as well. Similar to my other works, The Marrow of My Bones and Small Bodies of Waters, TIFF is a sculpture made from multiples of the same object, but each one is always different. I’m glad to hear you like it because I never know how cultural objects like this will be interpreted. When you use decorative objects, taste inevitably comes into play, which is a risk, and it’s not guaranteed how the work will be received.
The title ‘TIFF’ comes from Tiffany Glass, of course, but also from the .tiff file format—too large to be sent by email, yet high-quality and universally compatible. The work also references columns, architecture, domestic spaces, and even pubs. It’s about the act of continuously adding something until the moment when it transforms into something else. Formally, this idea of something flat becoming 3D follows my sculptural concerns always; now I know how these lamps are made from start to finish: the filigree, hand-cut pieces of glass become pixels, and then the sculpture, photographed again, becomes an image after all. Its life and death in the digital age is inevitable.
I find it interesting to work with objects that are decorative, tasteful, or “kitsch” (a word that carries a different meaning in Germany than it does for me in English). In Germany, beauty is often connected to function, so when decoration isn’t functional, what do you do with the space in between? For me, these objects represent a vulnerability—those that aren’t simply functional or entirely non-functional, like bodies that exist in that ambiguous, fragile space.
When you reflect on Salad Dressing from 2020, which explores the ecologies of food and the health of the human body, what are your thoughts, and is there potential to continue this concept?
Salad Dressing is a collection of clothes I designed and commissioned from costume designer Katharina Kindsvater. It includes pieces like a red cabbage silk evening gown, a mangold suit, a cabbage puffer jacket, and spring onion trousers. The work was part of my solo show, You Are What You Eat, Mhmm Nuts, where I explored themes of health, eating, and our relationship with environments—whether connected or disconnected.
The word „salad“ is intriguing linguistically, as it refers both to a leaf and a meal. This dual meaning shaped the collection, where all the pieces could be worn together or individually and were reversible. The clothes were displayed on mannequins and became self-portraits—suddenly, I was present in the room, adorned with my ecology.
My practice often involves clothing as part of a larger body of research. It started with silk scarves I created during my master’s and later for a “Jahresgabe” at the Westfälischer Kunstverein. Clothing, for me, is more than fashion—it’s a way of making something flat into a sculpture when worn. Salad Dressing continues this visual essay, combining fashion and sculpture, and it reflects my ongoing process.
In many of my shows, clothing or specific ‘dressing’ elements like wallpaper play a key role. I also write an essay for each project, which I perform or record as part of the show. When I’m working on a new body of work, everything becomes interconnected—my archives, the space, the sound, the atmosphere. Everything feeds into the work.
Currently, I’m working on large glass curtains that feature gestures from my garden—it’s not clothing, but the concept remains the same. When my shows are de-installed, they can never exist again in the same way; they are broken down and taken apart. So, for me, the clothing, the essays, the songs, and the wallpapers become the documentation of the show—more important than the photographs that adorn my Instagram or my website; they become the rubble of what once was before them; they are the artifacts of that moment. They give me hope when the shows are over as I move the work back into the studio, helping me prepare for the next phase of rebuilding and regathering.
Are you big on drawings? When it comes to sketching and collecting ideas, you later work in materials such as glass and metal. How flexible are these materials to intuitive processes?
Yes, I’m massive on drawing. Once I’ve gathered the stories, I begin drawing meticulously—over and over. I then digitally build the work to visualize it in space. Once I’m satisfied, I print the drawings and hand-bend metal onto them to create, so the process preserves my handiwork within the sculptures themselves. This might be why my pieces often feel light—the initial drawings are precise, but the rest of the process remains weighty.
Glass has grown into a core material for my work. It started as a side interest and slowly became its soul, inspired by the love and loss story of surrealist artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, who lived in Jersey and resisted the island’s Nazi occupation during WWII. After Cahun’s death, Moore painted all the windows of their seaside home green to block out the sea and this story moved me. I began painting glass panels green, and now the work is centered around glass.
Thanks to funding from the Liebelt Stiftung, I was able to purchase a glass oven and take classes in glassmaking, and now I am incredibly fortunate to have a glass scholarship from Alexander Tutsek Stiftung. This support has not only been crucial for my practice but has also connected my materiality and theme in a unified way.
Glass is both vulnerable and strong, liquid and solid—it allows you to look through it and at it. Metaphorically, the works always depict my solastalgia, my own coming to terms with the planet in need. I try to only use sustainable materials that aren’t harmful to the planet but that are also metaphors and allegories for our positions within a climate crisis. In my mind, the metal speaks of war and mining, of extraction, and the glass offers reflection—the beauty of vulnerability and knowledge; all will break. It is optimistic, but it is heartbreaking too.
What’s cooking in your studio at the moment, and where will we see your work next?
I’m excited about what’s coming up this year. I’m working on two solo shows. One explores the concept of forcing rhubarb to grow in complete darkness in a region with a coal mining legacy. The rhubarb grows so quickly it makes sounds, and we’re writing a folk song from its perspective to perform in the space. To enter, you’ll walk through gates made of huge glass rhubarbs.
The other show is more conceptual—a play about lithium-charged objects in therapy, discussing their feelings about no longer working and being part of larger problems. Both shows are braver in addressing topics that are important to me: my exhaustion with neoliberal production, the climate crisis, and late capitalist solutions. Ultimately, my work is always about care—caring for things, for ourselves, and for each other. I have upcoming shows in Hamburg, Berlin, and Poland.
CURRENTLY ON VIEW:
Exhibition: Politics of Love, group exhibition
Exhibition duration: 30.11.2024–2.2.2025
Address and contact:
Kunsthaus Hamburg
Klosterwall 15, 20095 Hamburg, Germany
www.kunsthaushamburg.de
Lulu MacDonald – www.lulumacdonald.com, www.instagram.com/lulu_macdonald/
Lulu MacDonald (born in 1991, UK) lives and works in Hamburg, Germany. She studied at Slade School of Fine Art and at HFBK Hamburg. Lulu MacDonald’s work bridges the personal and the universal, often focusing on world-building by intertwining storytelling with cutting-edge scientific discoveries. Her art grapples with the challenges of living on a damaged planet, creating spaces for connection, care, and even mourning for the world around us. Central to her practice are themes of sustainability, immigration, and ecology.
