BOOSTER 2017

“Come here little nature,

we bring you shelter and sweetss.”

The project is made in a collaboration with artist Silas Inoue for Skovsnogen Artspace.

Concrete, soil, polycarbonate, cobber, bronze, wood and sugar.

2,7 m tall, 4 m wide and 4,5 m long.

Supported by The Danish Art Foundation.

Please scroll down for a description of the project.

The time-based work Booster has been created for Skovsnogen Artspace in an interdisciplinary collaboration between architect Simon Hjermind Jensen and artist Silas Inoue. The work includes a protecting membrane in polycarbonate, a sculptural wooden object covered in sugar, a basin of concrete for collecting of rainwater and a half cubic meter of selected soil from the forest.

Inside the work is placed a wooden sculpture, which clad with 75 kg of caramelized sugar forms a giant piece of candy that intends to attract flies, ants and other small creatures. The sculpture is mounted with a half cubic meter of soil which is selected from the top soil of the forest, thus containing nutrition, microorganisms and various seeds. The soil and the sculpture are surrounded and contained by a transparent membrane consisting of 3 mm thick shells of polycarbonate. These shells are almost sewn together with rivets of cobber and bronze. All around the membrane a half-meter deep basin is casted, the purpose of which is to collect rainwater and then lead it into the soil through small openings in the membrane. The adding of rainwater, together with the greenhouse effect of the membrane, is to create ideal conditions for plant growth.

The purpose of the surrounding membrane, the sugar and the supply of rainwater is to attract and create life, or rather to “boost” the natural ecosystem of the forest, and to create an organic race for growth and survival.

The sugar will quickly disappear in the humid climate of the biotope. Beneath the sugar the wooden structure will perish very slowly – in line with the forest’s fallen trees and at a pace that extends over a long period of time. Over time the inside of the biotope will probably be covered with a jumble of different growths, and the work will slowly change its character from the synthetic to the more organic. The changing cycles of nature between growth and decay are therefore essential for the work and its placement in the forest, where the further artistic processing is left to nature and to the growths and insects which will occupy the work.