Alma's Wonderland

August 2019                        Photos by Sakiko Yamaoka, Per Nilsson, Doro Seror, SU-EN, Susanne Aldén
K.R.O.P.P.  Lab 2019
Haglund Skola, Sweden

Almas Wonderland is an installation that meanders through a small overgrown piece of nature behind the Haglund Skola estate.
Trunks wrapped with fiber, torn nets, hair dripping from dew, wrapped stones and textile fabrics that seem to grow directly out of rocks and wood. An abandoned fire pit. Signs and symbols laced up from bark and branches. Hanging, lying. What has always been here and what has been merged into the nature by mankind? What is freshly installed and what has been left behind from an earlier civilization? The path winds along a small pool where rose hips swim and beans sprouting in mouse traps. A carpet of moss and textiles grows on a throne made of natural rocks, a mesh shirt, spiked with grains hangs lost between the trees. Feathers and furs testify to animal dwellers, or did people have taken their lifes and left their remains? Creepy and enchanted, vivid and abandoned, inviting and repellent - a small country to discover.

The works are woven into nature as if by chance, like leftover of a past civilization. Only waste materials that were found or donated on site are used. They are aesthetically pleasingly placed into nature so that they become part of it. This permanent installation is exposed to wind and  weather and nature will take it back increasingly and fully integrate the installation into it. The installed objects and setups are reminiscent of everyday objects of civilization (bed, fireplace, saucepan, carpet), they even form shelter -like structures. Nevertheless, it is intentional that they have no use other than to be art. The pieces woven between the trees look like a roof, a hammock, a bed, but the used rotten branches are not so robust that they can be usefull in the long term and are meant to decay. Installed nets look like traps for animals, but are designed with holes and permeability that they cannot serve this purpose and thus do no harm to the existing fauna.

The installation looks as if years ago, centuries ago there was a civilization here that has been abandoned and the place has already been recaptured by nature.
Objects from civilization are alienated in such a way that they look old and have a patina, even if they are "new" waste from our time.
The power of nature to recapture the planet despite human interventions meets the human desire to appropriate, even to subjugate, nature.
The magical mini landscape lies in front of the eye of the beholder, who can walk into it, and reflect about the subject, which influence civilization has on nature and vice versa.


 


 

August 2019
K.R.O.P.P.  Lab 2019
Haglund Skola, Sweden

Photos by Sakiko Yamaoka, Per Nilsson, Doro Seror, SU-EN, Susanne Aldén