Soft water is collaborative reflection on the theme of water conducted to address the issue of flooding in Rogaland.  The installation has been created during a 5 weeks AIR program in Vikeså, for Dalane Kulturfesival.

My project inquires into material as a carrier of meaning, a dynamic matter inter-connect with place and its inhabitants.

Here material has agency, the ability to evoke its response to individuals or an entire society.

The work is based on processes and a site specific research, carried out through conversations and shared sessions of making.

The intervention within space is considered in a dynamic way. This large scale installation is mutable and welcome change, it can be touched, smelled, listen to and being placed in outdoor environments, is exposed to changing and uncontrolled weather conditions.

 

By using different kinds of wool: raw wool, carded wool, wool cloth, old clothes; worked upon with craft techniques, we created our ‘soft’ interpretations of water.

Wool is a valuable material for Bjerkreim and Rogaland, it relates to the economy but also to culture, heritage, memories, feelings of belonging and familiarity.

Living close to an uncontrollable stream of water teaches us that our comfort zone can be challenged and our interaction with the environment must be redefined.

From a large scale wave of wool, smaller soft interventions, created by the project participants, will be installed in unexpected places in nature, thus creating a new interaction with the space we inhabit daily and inviting us to reflect upon the effect that of our daily actions have on the environment.