Under plov. Ligger land. Under himmel. (Rynket rose)
Jordforbindelser - dansk maleri 1780-1920 og det antropocæne landskab
Ribe Kunstmuseum / Ribe Art Museum
2018
The pavilion was moved from the open meadow near Fuglsang Museum to a coastal area close to Vadehavscentret and Ribe Art Museum, Jutland. The pavilion is made from recycled wood and this time the roof and walls are thatched with Rosa Rugosa (Rynket rose) harvested in the coastal area of the Wadden Sea.
The Rosa Rugosa is causing great problems due to its invasive behaviour in the area as in many other coastal areas in Denmark. The Rosa Rugosa was introduced from China in the 1880’s and the conditions in the Danish nature are very good for the plant, so good that war rhetoric and many different actions are now being used to fight it. But no matter how hated it is today, in just 150 years the plant has become inextricably connected with the Danes’ picture of a Danish summer landscape. The pavilion is thatched with Rosa Rugosa - not to say that we should learn to live with it, but to highlight the view of nature that is expressed when we exert a top-level control in our pursuit to bring back an original natural landscape.
The work examines how the invasive plant alters the landscape and how we deal with it, thereby exposing the interconnectedness of nature and culture and our ideas of how nature should behave and how it behaves in relation to us and our impact on it.
Photographs (140x140 cm) of the plant collections of the Common Reed, the Common Broom and the Rosa Rugosa used for the pavilion in this exhibition, are shown inside Ribe Art Museum together with display cases showing the biology of all three plant species.
This is the third work of four with the title Under Plov. Ligger Land. Under himmel (Under Plough. Lies Land. Beneath sky) made for the travelling exhibition Jordforbindelser - dansk maleri 1780-1920 og det antropocæne landskab (Down to Earth – Danish painting 1780-1920 and the antrhopocene landscape) shown at four museums: Faaborg Museum, Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, Ribe Kunstmuseum and Den Hirschsprungske Samling.
