Landscape in Motion 2024

Photo: Niels Fabæk

Landscape in Motion
2024

Landscape in Motion

Landscape in Motion is a site specific sand installation, made for the exhibition Colourful Landscapes – Niels Larsen Stevns & Signe Klejs at Vendsyssel Museum of Art. The exhibition focuses on Niels Larsen Stevns’ landscape paintings, where his use of strong brushstrokes, emotional colour compositions and the light characterize his practice with landscape paintings. Stevns draws his inspiration from the nature which makes the motifs.

The motif in Signe Klejs’ circular sand installation is made by her own observations of nature and the shapes and colours are in dialogue with Stevn’. Klejs’ source for the motif has been found digitally by using Google Maps, whose satellite images makes it possible to see the landscape from above and thereby read and extract the overall shapes, lines and colours. By the use of technology Klejs has composed a pattern that portrays the landscape of Vendsyssel.

Like in her earlier installations Signe Klejs works with the concept of entropy in Landscape in Motion. Entropy describes nature's tendency to move towards disorder and chaos. In physics, entropy refers to a system's degree of disorder – the higher the entropy, the more disordered and random the system is. This movement towards change, dissolution and transformation is a central theme in Klejs' artistic practice. Entropy can also symbolize the unpredictability and impermanence of life, where everything is in constant development and transformation.

Klejs uses sand as a primary material, as she is fascinated by the duality of sand: It is at once the earth's building block in its smallest form and at the same time fleeting and fragile. Sand can be experienced as a heavy mass, but also as something that can be easily changed and moved. It speaks to our world of experience, especially in Denmark, where the coastlines are an essential part of our landscape. We know the feeling of sand between our fingers, in our hair and in our teeth – it is a material that is both close and unavoidable, and which creates a strong connection to Klejs' installations.

As in Klejs' other sand installations, the digital is also included in this work in the form of small motors that sit in the podium. These motors shake the platform once a day, causing the sand to mix together and the subject to become more and more indistinct. The work shows how even the most familiar landscape is in perpetual change – a visual expression of the principles of entropy. Klejs' work shows the volatility of sand and its ability to be shaped and transformed, giving an insight into the chaos and beauty of nature – a reflection of entropy's impact on our world.

The exhibition can be experienced at Vendsyssel Art Museum from 24 August 2024 to 12 January 2025. When the exhibition closes, the motif will have changed due to the vibrations of the podium.

The exhibition and research project is supported by the Augustinus Foundation, the Beckett Foundation, the Knud Højgaard Foundation, the Lemvigh-Müller Foundation, the New Carlsberg Foundation and the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation.