Excerpt from the OpenART 2017, Sweden Biennale catalogue
The catalogue shares some of the stories behind the flowers that were contributed for my installation "Blossom Flourish Wither Perish"
"....Used items carry memories. They have a history, some more clear than others, says Kerstin Wagner, assistant curator, and then shares a special story.
A woman came to the office at Kopmangatan and dropped off an IKEA bag filled with dried flowers. The flowers turned out to be gifts from her late husband and other gifts.
The woman had a hard time separating herself from the flowers, but when she knew that an artist would be able to use them, it made the whole process easier.She brought her bridal bouquet in and asked if we wanted that as well.
The woman Kerstin talks about is Lena Wickberg and when she heard Open Art was collecting flowers, she decided to donate her own collection. Lena started collecting flowers when she and her husband moved in together in the late 1980s. On top of a blue cabinet she put flowers from birthday parties, some of which she had grown in the garden of her country house, and gifts. When they moved to a new apartment, the cabinet and the flowers came along with them and slowly, but surely, the collection grew.
The catalogue shares some of the stories behind the flowers that were contributed for my installation "Blossom Flourish Wither Perish"
"....Used items carry memories. They have a history, some more clear than others, says Kerstin Wagner, assistant curator, and then shares a special story.
A woman came to the office at Kopmangatan and dropped off an IKEA bag filled with dried flowers. The flowers turned out to be gifts from her late husband and other gifts.
The woman had a hard time separating herself from the flowers, but when she knew that an artist would be able to use them, it made the whole process easier.She brought her bridal bouquet in and asked if we wanted that as well.
The woman Kerstin talks about is Lena Wickberg and when she heard Open Art was collecting flowers, she decided to donate her own collection. Lena started collecting flowers when she and her husband moved in together in the late 1980s. On top of a blue cabinet she put flowers from birthday parties, some of which she had grown in the garden of her country house, and gifts. When they moved to a new apartment, the cabinet and the flowers came along with them and slowly, but surely, the collection grew.
They are getting more and more fragile and of course drier by the day, but they are amazingly beautiful, especially the roses, says Lena.
In September, it will be two years since her husband passed away and Lena started thinking about what she would do with the apartment, and with the flowers when she heard about OpenArt needing flowers.
The flowers have such a sentimental value to me that it felt great to be able to give them to the art instead of throwing them in the bin, Lena says. There's hardly anything left of my bridal bouquet from my first marriage; it's mostly just wires and a few roses and corn flowers- they get very fragile when you dry them- so I am very excited to see what the artist can do with them.
Lena, who paints with watercolors herself, believes the connection to art through the donations is very important to the people of Orebro. Art should be close to people who otherwise might not get the chance, can actually meet the art. Lena says that she is very inspired by the fantastic ideas the artists have and that they inspire people to be creative and even a little crazy..."
RSS Feed