The 2009 programme of the Wanås Foundation revolves around the environment. This year’s art exhibition, “Footprints”, addresses man’s relationship to nature. The Foundation applies environmentally sustainable habits to its daily practice. Two ecological university projects are realised in collaboration with the Foundation.
The exhibition WANÅS 2009: Footprints addresses man’s relationship to nature. Today many artists show an interest in questions regarding ecological sustainability, ecosystems, and global warming. These issues have become part of our everyday lives and are addressed by the artists from a personal as well as economical, political, or social point of view. The artists participating in Footprints share a concern about the world we all share. Art has a voice beyond that of politics and science and can therefore add new perspectives to the environmental debate. Many of the participating artists show possibilities for change. In a time when development often seems to be going in the wrong direction, the artists cautiously share their future hopes with us.
The exhibition includes twelve works presented in the Park and the Konsthall. The participating artists Tue Greenfort (Denmark), Henrik Håkansson (Sweden), Tea Mäkipää (Finland) with Halldór Úlfarsson (Iceland), Tomas Saraceno (Argentina) and Nilsmagnus Sköld (Sweden) have been offered time, space, and possibilities to create new works based on Wanås’ nature and history. Greenfort and Saraceno are exhibiting for the first time at a Swedish art institution.
Participating artists in WANÅS 2009: Footprints
Tue Greenfort (b. 1973 in Denmark) works with science-inspired methods and interdisciplinary openness. He is specifically interested in how man is changing the environment and in questions regarding agriculture and cultivated nature. At Wanås, Greenfort has created two new works. The most extensive, Milk Heat, giving the visitors the possibility to experience the excess heat from the fresh milk in the Wanås cow stable. Greenfort, who participated in the 2007 Skulptur Projekte Münster, is hereby exhibiting for the first time at a Swedish art institution.
Henrik Håkansson (b. 1968 in Sweden) presents new two site-specific projects focusing on the flora and fauna of Wanås. During two spring months he has rotated four motion sensitive cameras between various places in the Wanås woodlands, to investigate the ample variety of wild animals. This documentation is now on display in the Konsthall. Håkansson is also creating a 2500 m2 reserve in the Park, which is made inaccessible to visitors and therefore allowed to develop freely. Håkansson is one of Sweden’s most internationally renowned contemporary artists and has exhibited at the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, among other places. At Wanås, he presents his first permanent work in Sweden.
Tea Mäkipää (b. 1973 in Finland) and Halldór Úlfarsson (b. 1977 in Iceland) co-present the installation Atlantis (2007). The work consists of a traditional Swedish red cabin partly sunk into the Wanås lake. Mäkipää will also exhibit 1:1 (2004), a full-scale representation of the anatomy of an apartment. Lacking walls, floor, and ceiling, it is made solely from water pipes, ventilation shafts, radiators, and power chords, etc. Atlantis and 1:1 are poetic reminders of the vulnerability of our modern lifestyle.
Tomas Saraceno (b. 1973 in Argentina) presents an extensive “flying garden” in the Park as well as Cumulus (2006), an eight channel video installation in the Konsthall. The two works are part of the artist’s ongoing project, Air-Port-City, which investigates the possibility of moving the inhabitants on Earth to cities above ground. Cumulus was recorded at the world’s largest salt flat, located 3000 meters above sea level in Bolivia. The clouds are moving at eye level, allowing spectators to experience what it would be like to live among the clouds. Saraceno will also participate in this year’s Venice Biennale, with a major installation for the Italian Pavilion. The presentation at Wanås will be the artist’s first at a Swedish art institution.
Nilsmagnus Sköld (b. 1968 in Sweden) will present No More Shall We Part, an installation produced specifically for this exhibition. The project revolves around Bertil Norrsell, a dentist and an orchid grower in Tollarp in the south of Sweden. The artist focuses on Norrsell’s greenhouse, which has remained untouched since his death in 1974. Sköld has documented the greenhouse ruin from various perspectives, using video, photography, sound, and archeological material. The project can be seen as a continuation, but also an examination of the artist’s ecological project that has resulted in several works, including Paradise Lost, shown at Wanås in 2003.
