intrikat
2013
multi-part installation
photography, plants, wooden construction, handwriting by Cecilie Løveid
'intrikat' at Hordaland museumssenter, Salhus Trikotasjefabrikk discusses the constantly ongoing transformations in our immediate surroundings and how they interlink and affect another. Working on 'intrikat', I traced the results of the closure of the knitting factory in Salhus into the wider Norwegian landscape, as well as including comparable phenomena from related situations in Germany and beyond. Together, the objects of 'intrikat' appear like a scenographical experience, for the viewer to walk through and explore.
Norwegian wool was the main source for clothes production at the factory in Salhus, near Bergen. Nowadays, there are hardly sheep grazing in the mountains anymore. The former agricultural landscape is covered by new vegetation.I was asked: Is this about nature? It is about our nearby surroundings.
Even the smallest seed might have been chemically treated against diseases. It could develop into a lush plant.
The BWK wool combing factory in Bremen Blumenthal is left behind empty. All machinery has been packed and shipped to Asia to establish a textile industry there. Of the formerly 5000 employees are now 15 left.
Also the factory in Salhus is left behind, devoid - like an empty shell, even though the machines are still in place.
I travelled onboard a cargo ship from Hamburg to Oulu and back again. The crew had been in Hamburg many times, yet never seen anything but the container terminals.
A third of all containers are returned empties.
FEU means forty-food equivalent unit, a standardized size for shipping containers: 12,2m x 2,44m x 2,59m
Two FEU volumes occupy the exhibition space in Salhus, like empty white shells somewhere between sea and land.
Container versus content.
