The Projector Exhales The Image
Installation at the Wanås Foundation
The installation emanates from a project I did together with high school students, at Wanås in the fall of 2010. The students were asked to give proposals for answers to the question "What is nature?", in the shape of installations in the Wanås Park.
In my exhibition documentary photos taken by six students were used. The artwork consisted of a slide show with a selection of the photos. The slide show was projected on a little landscape with dead trees on the floor.
I am interested in the seemingly neutral position of the projector and its inability to display black. The projector becomes a representative of the establishment, whose selection becomes visible in the glow from the projector lamp. Like in a computers "sleep mode" indicator, this projector "exhales" twelve images per minute. Between the pictures there is darkness, or rather, a different, darker glow. The installation points out the connection between the projector and the image that emanates from it.
The projector directs our gaze. It casts an image from itself out on the world. The image looks back at the projector. A landscape of trees is in between. Without the image we cannot see nature.