The region’s tourist authority invited Kneip to visit last May, and to make a short film (below) while they were there.
They decided to use the opportunity to find inspiration for a new work of art. “The final product from this project will be a direct result of the material and objects we find,” they decided. “For three days we wandered and cycled around Stryn looking for materials for the project.”
They explored the area on borrowed bicycles with toolkits strapped to the back, and experimented with various materials: taking rubbings from a rusting boat, creating a wooden wave-powered drawing machine and making stacks of pebbles, before settling on driftwood as the material they would use. “The impact of nature’s forces over time on materials such as driftwood can be utterly beautiful,” they explained.
They piled their bicycles high with as much driftwood as they could carry and headed back to their studio in Oslo.
Having spotted one piece of driftwood that had been blackened by water damage, and another that had been slightly burned, they hit upon the idea of painting the driftwood black. “The matte black surface emphasises the organic shapes,” they said. “By depriving the object of its natural colouring we want to pull the object out of its original environment and create new associations.” They brushed the wood clean and painted it black (burning it caused too much detail to be lost) before carefully mounting each piece on a hand-cast concrete plinth.
The resulting sculptures were shown as part of Structure (above), an exhibition of contemporary Norwegian craft and design in Milan’s Ventura Lambrate district during the Salone del Mobile in April. And the approach is one the pair are keen to try again. “By spending time in nature you will constantly find inspiration,” they say. “The project has given us a new way of working – we’ll definitely use the same method again.”
