Year: 2021
Size: 16 cm x 15 cm x 8,5 cm
The square root of a forest lake is an artist book. A piece that manifested itself emerging from a collaboration between author Karina Søby Madsen and myself. It was selected for the group exhibition Interstices curated by artist and Sarah Umles. It had its debut in Minneapolis at Franconia Sculpture park in Shafer in May 2021. Afterwards the exhibition went to Los Angeles for another viewing. Furthermore it has been acquired by the library at Earth Wise residency in Ebeltoft in Denmark.
Karina Søby Gulmann Madsen a Danish writer and myself began our artistic collaboration in 2019 in Denmark, when we happened to stumble upon each other by chance. Since then we have been collaborating by exchanging images and texts to explore the space between visual art and poetry, where we in particular have a common interest in the forest and how this is a space for reflection upon the human condition.
The result of our artistic and poetic collaboration manifested itself as a poetry book entitled Squareroot of a forest lake, where the work consists of three poems written by Karina. The cover - created by Christina - is a photograph which depicts an infinite sign made of paper floating freely in the lake. The shape of the book itself and the photographic picture is a dialogue between the mathematical and existential content of the poems. We want to allude to a sense of holding the forest lake in your hands. The work examines existence and relationships with nature. It is as if the existence is in a state of upheaval. Togetherness and society are on the verge of a collapse, while mathematical concepts contrast with their regularity. In the background, nature unfolds as both a protector and a threat.
The poems and photograph touches upon themes such as intimacy and estrangement, nature and humans intertwined in a space where both the controlled and uncontrolled forces rules. The infinity sign is being morphed by the force of nature, and perhaps the beauty is only a personal experience of a momentarily floating feeling, that will only exist in the memory of the viewer.
