GROWING

GROWING ON ME – was about working with shapes inspired by nature and especially trees. This project first startede because FairTrade Designers got an invitation to exhibit at Koldinghus at the exhibition ‘Stof til eftertanke’ (‘Textile for thoughts’… free translation from Danish) – and decided to create three collars. Three different collars, in three different materials, which were the materials we were working with at the time. I selected wood and the proces started in 2009.

In May ’10 I went back and again visited the Ghanaian Master Carver, Nana Amako at Aburi Industri and also meet his wife Evelyn, who is secretary of the 400 carvers at Cooperativ Aburi Industri. Nana had carved the sculptural shaped wood collar from my foam model, and doing this proces we had talked and found out that we where both fascinated by the ‘strangler trees’, that grows on and mostly around a ‘host tree’, which suffocates and withers.

The pieces of wood are mainly cylindrical and hollow in the center, and the spaces very organic. We both liked this kind of wood very much and we agree, that we would like to continue working with these weird trees.

Back in Denmark I worked on small models and related to the human body.

Some inspired by the open structure like the trees.

Some small thinking-touching hand-sculptures. For the table or pocket. Good when thinking is needed, because you can let the hand play with the surface of the form, as when the artisan sends spirit and thought into her hand, and lets it do the work.

The project is on stand-by awaiting funding to move from models to next level and visiting Ghana and Nana again.

Here in Danish

FORHISTORIE/ background story

Projektet er vokset ud af et ophold i Ghana og især mødet med den ghanesiske Master Carver, Nana Amako, som jeg mødte første gang i jan. ’09, da jeg som del af FairTrade Designers, sammen med Liselotte Risell og DIPP’s Magrete Stage besøgte Aburi Industri. Aburi Industri er et arbejdscooperativ, der ligger i udkanten af Accra, Ghanas hovedstad. Her arbejder Nana Amako og ca. 400 andre træskærere, der sidder indenfor i deres små ‘butikker’ og skærer figurer og andre objekter i træ. Nanas arbejder viste, at han er en mester i formgivning i træ, og jeg fik straks stor lyst til at samarbejde med ham.

Denne lyst fik jeg mulig for at forfølge, da FairTrade Designers blev inviteret til, at udstille på Koldinghus ifm udstillingen ‘Stof til Eftertanke’ i ’09, og FTD besluttede, at lave 3 unika kraver i materialer fra vores igangværende projekter.

Inspireret af besøget i Nanas værksted arbejdede jeg videre med skitser og skalamodeller til en trækrave. Og for mig blev FTD trækraven en afprøvning af et samarbejde med Nana Amako, som jeg nu arbejder på at videreudvikle til et selvstændigt projekt. Se her udviklingsforløbet og resultatet af arbejdet med kraven.