Åsa Elzén
Forest Calling – A Never-ending Contaminated Collaboration
or Dancing is a Form of Forest Knowledge /
Skogen kallar – Ett oändligt kontaminerat samarbete eller
Dansandet är en form av skogskunskap
– Extension #2 at The Experimental Field, Accelerator, SU
– Extension #1 In Forest Intervals
Notes on a Fallow – The Fogelstad Group and Earth /
Träda – Fogelstadgruppen och jord
– A Growing Fallow Archive / Ett växande träda-arkiv
– Biography of a Fallow / En trädas biografi
– Transcript of a Fallow / Avskrift av en Träda
– Fogelstad Fågelstad Fågelsta Fågelholk Fågelbo
– The Other School / Den andra skolan
– A Growing Archive on the Women’s Barn and Livestock
School at Fogelstad / Ett växande arkiv över Kvinnliga
Ladugårdsutbildningen vid Fogelstad
– A Step to the Side / Ett steg åt sidan
– A Growing Peace with the Earth Collection
– Transcript of Transcripts: Elin – Bang /
Avskrifter av avskrifter: Elin – Bang
– Why do things when you could leave it? – An attempt,
an in-between land / Varför gör man saker då man kunde
låta bli? – Ett försök, ett gränsland
While I am trying to get to know Fredrika, I am always
– Memory of an Event I (Dear Honorine / Dearest Signe)
Mary Wollstonecraft’s Scandinavian journey 1795 re-traced
YES! Association / Föreningen JA!
– A New Spelling of a Street – A tribute to Audre Lorde
– All that you touch You Change. All that you Change
– (art)work(sport)work(sex)work
– Zyklische Gesellschaftsreise
...
above and below (from top down): installation view at Experimental Field, Accelerator
collecting material and making of
A day through Forest Calling – A Never-ending Contaminated Collaboration or Dancing is a Form of Forest Knowledge
Forest Calling – A Never-ending Contaminated Collaboration or Dancing is a Form of Forest Knowledge. Extension #2
Wood to be thrown away collected around Accelerator and Stockholm University Campus, 6 x 3,4 x 4,7 m
for the exhibition Experimental Field at Accelerator, SU, Stockholm, curated by Therese Kellner and Richard Julin
in collaboration with Malin Arnell with assistance from Mar Fjell and Lisa Gerholm, 2020
Forest Calling – A Never-ending Contaminated Collaboration or Dancing is a Form of Forest Knowledge. Extension #2 is made of felled forest, tree branches and industrially processed wooden material from different epochs and origins. For a month, wood that was to be thrown away – from demolitions, refurbishments, waste and from the pruning of trees planted during the time of the Experimental Field – was collected at the university. The material of the sculpture testifies to its long use in the service of knowledge.The sculpture’s connection to the site is strengthened by the fact that it was created in the area formerly occupied by the Experimental Field. The work forms part of Arnell and Elzén’s joint exploration of forestry, the rights of nature, eco-social desire and resilient relationships between species.
Indicated by the title, the work is a type of extension of the artists’ long-term process-based work Forest Calling – A Never-ending Contaminated Collaboration or Dancing is a Form of Forest Knowledge (2018 – ongoing). This public artwork comprises 3.7 hectares of forest in the form of a triangle. The artists are leasing the forest for 50 years, as a first step in taking it out of logging production. The forest was partly planted during the time when the Fogelstad Group was active on the site. The forest grows on the grounds of the Fogelstad Manor, the homestead of the group that was founded in 1921. By stopping the forest from being clear cut, the artists are attempting to safeguard it and allow the continuum from the Fogelstad Group to proceed. The artists forcefully disrupt the temporality and release the forest from the anthropocentric profit-driven motivations of the forestry industry that it is part of today. The proportions of the sculpture presented at Accelerator are based on the triangular form of the forest.
9 Oct. 2021, A day through Forest Calling – A Never-ending Contaminated Collaboration or Dancing is a Form of Forest Knowledge took place. The public was invited to visit and spend time in the forest.
read more about the exhibition Experimental Field
read more about the trip to Forest Calling
read more about the trip to Forest Calling in Swedish
watch an artist talk with Accelerator curator Therese Kellner
watch a conversation with curator Maija Kasvinen, Nordisk Kulturkontakt