Every morning, the Norns carry water from the well, which they pour over the World Tree Yggdrasil. Every morning, the Norns care for and tend to it, ensuring it remains green and healthy. Every morning, they make sure that the World Tree does not rot, that the world does not fall apart.

“Nine Mothers” is Sif Itona Westerberg's (DK) third solo exhibition with Gether Contemporary. The exhibition is based on the Old Norse myth of the three Norns, from which Westerberg continues her extensive sculptural work exploring the human relationship with nature and the forgotten knowledge found in the fundamental stories that once held our understanding and obligation to the world together. This time, Westerberg's exhibition delves into the stories of fate and life in Norse mythology, using them as a prism for a conversation about the connection between humans and nature, the sorrow over losing close ecological ties, and the care work involved in maintaining it.

The Norns are the Nordic goddesses of fate, represented by three sisters called Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld, who reside under the World Tree Yggdrasil. Here lies their beautiful hall, along with Urd's well, from which they draw water every day to pour over Yggdrasil's roots. The water in the well is so pure that everything that comes into it turns white, and in the well swim two swans, which are the ancestors of all other swans. The three Norns guard fate, and their names mean "that which was" ("Urd"), "that which is" ("Verdandi"), and "that which will be" ("Skuld"), essentially personifying time itself. In addition to overseeing fate on a broader scale, it is often in connection with the two most fundamental points in a person's life path – birth and death – that they appear in the sources. In some parts of the Nordic countries, it was a folk tradition long after the transition to Christianity to prepare a so-called "nornegrød" (Norn porridge) for the new mother and midwife.

In the exhibition space, the three Norns are each represented through detached and almost floating heads in three different stages: the untouched, the cracked, and the overgrown. Westerberg's sculptures thus form a landscape consisting of nine female figures; gardeners, protectors, or mothers, whose formal task is to keep the world running and fate unfolding. Mothers, in this case, understood as those who give birth to everything, as a source of origin, or as an entity that performs motherhood for someone or something. On the walls around the busts hang plaster reliefs of roots, growths, and plants. In these reliefs, a speculative botany unfolds, which Sif has developed her own sculptural language through over the past few years, and which here can be seen as objects for the Norns' skilled and consistent care work, where they tend, nurture, protect, and water.

With the exhibition “Nine Mothers,” Westerberg has created a landscape or post-landscape of time, care, and obligation, which connects mythical tales about time and destiny with questions about modern ecology and caregiving work.