#laths

Ingen Å är en Ö / No river is an island at Rydals museum 

220520 - 221009     

Process exhibition at Rydals museum Ingen Å är en Ö (No river is an island), within the project Skimmer och härvor, an exploratory work situation about the river Viskan under a post-humanistic umbrella. We participated in the group consisting of artists and researchers, members of a graphic workshop, an art school, writers and more.

Initiators and curators Theo Ågren and Thomas Laurin

MASUs contribution to the exhibition started in the ongoing work within the project (Material)Site Recordings and the moving laths. From 2021 we have a forest lab in Skene next to Hedgärdessjön. A site we borrow from Ann och Anders Broberg for approx. 3 years.

This is the home to our laths when they not on the move recording. The site is a place where the water starts to run to the river Viskan passing Hedgärdessjön.

The name of our work is Malström (Maelstrom) and has a shape of a vortex and consists of 1300 laths connected with 3000 cable ties.

The dark wooden laths in the exhibition bring recorded traces from their travels and the site at Hedgärdessjön as well as ants and other insects, fungi, animals, and exercisers. 400 laths are new; white with yet no history.

The installation is built in an investigative process, next to (almost in front of) the entrance of the art space. Visitors have to come really close to it when moving in to  enter the exhibition.

MASU_beach_October_2020

Documentation from a one-day sculpture project on the beach in Ängelholm. We worked with the wooden laths that are broken from the project (Material) Site Recordings for one day, then disassembled the structure.

210830_New forest to work in.

Our project (Material) Site Recordings, in which we move our 3000 wooden laths from site to site, is now actively a part of the umbrella project Skimmer och Härvor (Shimmers and Entanglements) that works around the river Viskan in the South-West of Sweden. Our new site is in the forest around Skene, close to Hedgärdesjön and we believe that the water that collects on the site moves towards the lake and out into Viskan, we will look further in to this. We have moved the laths from Ängelholm and most of the ones from storage and we have started to work. We are slow in the beginning.

The site is populated by a large amount of ants (with a couple real big hills close by) and the Aspen is really extending its roots across the space. Also plenty of different moss and mushrooms inhabit the site and we are trying to figure out how to work with all the different layers of existence.

We are also getting better at our outdoor cooking routine.

We will be on site working over the year and in May 21st 2022 there will be an opening of the work.

Sculpture at Ystad Kloster // January 2021

Sculpture project at Ystad Kloster as part of Livets väv - Vad är Ekologi // The fabric of life - What is Ecology?  The darker wooden laths have been outside at different sites within the project (Material) Site Recordings and the lighter ones are cut in Ystad for the exhibition.

In the tight space (high ceiling though) we worked with a darker tree-trunk / columns-structure that supports a network of the lighter laths creating a more intimate space, like an opening in the forest.

De-construction / Moving / 200401

This was the first site we worked in Kronoskogen, for the Land Art exhibition Staden till havet / the City to the Sea in 2018 (The first sculptures were taken by the wind, and we rebuilt them two weeks later). The material came from our sculpture project Traces of Movement in Halmstad the same year (www.artinsideout.se). During 2019 we formulated the larger context for the wooden laths into the project (Material) Site Recordings which is the ongoing movement of this material to new sites and situations. We intend to place the laths 10 times and this de-construction / move is our fourth situation. The material has been in the meadow for almost two years, with birch trees and raspberry bushes growing up thru and beside the sculpture, slowly invading the structure. Weather and animals have made marks on the wood. When we removed all the wood (apx 1100 laths) and left the site it is like it was never there. This feels a little strange. We have the photos, videos and drawings, but when we look at the little hill where the structure just sat it is like it never happened.