For all tid uforanderlig / For All Time Unchangin, were exhibited at H//O//F, (House of Foundation), Moss 2017.
The textile montage ‘The Dream of Petra, the Rose-Red City’ and the wood sculptures ‘Heads’ belong to the series For All Time Unchanging. The stimulus is a discarded book from Oslo’s Deichman Public Library: Fortidens eventyrland by J.A. Hammerton (published in 1934, with the original title Wonders of the Past). I acquired this book when the library was reviewing its collection and discarding thousands of books, in preparation for moving to new premises in the Bjørvika neighbourhood. Hammerton’s book has supplied both visual and thematic inspiration for the works. Pictures from it are also included in the textile montage.
The book tells about ancient cities, places and monuments and what remained of them at the time the book was published. Many places that are described no longer exist in the same condition as when the book was written in 1934, their ruination stemming from war, tourism, weathering or natural disasters. Petra, the theme of the montage, stands in contrast to several other ancient sites that can no longer be visited by tourists. It has become over- accessible through mass-tourism and pictorial material on Internet.
The title For All Time Unchanging suggests an ambivalent back-and-forth movement between a desire to preserve ancient monuments despite their unavoidable collapse. The work revolves around historical stories that are no longer accessible – but also new stories emerging from the wreckage.
