Under plov. Ligger land. Under himmel. (Tagrør)
Jordforbindelser - dansk maleri 1780-1920 og det antropocæne landskab
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum
2018
The pavilion was moved from Svanninge Bakker near Faaborg Museum to Skejten, an open meadow area near Fuglsang Art Museum, Lolland, Denmark.
The pavilion is made from recycled wood and this time the roof and walls were thatched with Common Reed (Tagrør) harvested in the surroundings. Like the Common Broom used for the roof of the pavilion at Faaborg Museum, Common Reed is a native plant. It is also a traditional thatching material, but today most of the reed used for thatch roofs in Denmark is imported from Poland and China. The last 50 years the Common Reed has spread significantly in the area of Skejten, in a way like that of invasive plant species, outcompeting other vegetation, lowering the local plant biodiversity and destroying the breeding sites of birds in the area. This strong growth is due to less grazing, an increased amount of nitrogen in the air and more nutrients in the soil from agricultural fertilization of the surrounding fields.
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 actually does behave in relation to us and our impact on it.
Photographs (140x140 cm) of the plant collection of both the Common Reed used in this exhibition and the Common Broom used in the exhibition at Faaborg Museum are shown inside Fuglsang Art Museum together with display cases showing the biology of both plants.
This is the second 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 Anthrohopocene landscape) shown at four museums: Faaborg Museum, Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, Ribe Kunstmuseum og Den Hirschsprungske Samling.
