The image above, spread 1.
Publication Rugged Terrain/Confident Stride. Made and published during the degree exhibition with the same name at Konstepidemin in Gothenburg in the spring of 2022.
Graphic design by Simon Nilsson in collaboration with me and Noah Holtegaard for the bachelor class of 2022, Fine Art at HDK-Valand – Academy of Art and Design
Translated text from the publication
I see a chair growing out of cultivated soil
I see a shopping cart filled with flowers
I see fenced trees behind a fence, secured to the ground with long tension straps
I roll out a carpet of grass
I see a pine branch growing over a rock
I buy bark in the garden shop in the Botanical Garden
What do we mean by natural materials, is it what we find in the forest? Is it the stone we pick up on the beach or the brick we buy at Byggmax? Is it the hepatica we discover in the spring, the invasive lupine or the planted fir tree we admire in the forest?
I mainly work with sculpture and installations where I process plant material that I may have found in the forest or received from the Botanical Garden. I combine these with refined materials such as studs, steel or linen cord. The processing and composition sets questions in motion that I try to visualize through the shape of the sculpture. In the process, there is a constant negotiation between the material's potential/limitations and what I am trying to say. My sculptures may at first glance be lustful and to the point, but it is the details of the work that underline my questions; the sculptures demand attention from their viewers.
In the nature reserve, I see a felled tree that has been firmly riveted to another tree, as a support to prevent it from falling. I think this can be seen as encroachment, infestation or symbiosis. Perhaps Karin Johannisson is right in her text Det sköna i det vilda, where she explains that wild nature is a scale where the wild is in proportion to human control. Then where does this division occur? Where is the beginning and end of the manipulated and the real. Can we discern it?
I buy soil at Blomsterlandet and invest in other soil
I join a rule of spruce with a branch of cherry tree
and names it Convergence II
Caroline Uggla 2022
Book cover + graphics for instagram made by Simon Nilsson
Spread 2
