Martina Lindqvist's 'The Absurdity of Greener Grass'
Date uploaded: January 22, 2014
Modus Operandi is delighted to announce the inauguration of a new public artwork at New Burlington Street, W1. The Absurdity of Greener Grass is by photographer Martina Lindqvist takes the form of a 30m by 15m building wrap, and will remain in place over the coming year whilst the New Burlington Street development is under construction. The launch of the wrap was celebrated in December 2013 by a reception in the Photographers’ Gallery.
The artwork has been commissioned by The Crown Estate and their development partner Exemplar, who were keen to offer this opportunity to an emerging artist. Lindqvist is currently studying for her MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art in London, and this is her first work of art in the public realm. Lindqvist is known for photographic works that draw on the emotive effects of real and constructed landscapes. She uses the natural world as a tool through which to explore key themes such as belonging, memory, and perception.
The W5 South development scheme is part of the next phase of Regent Street’s ongoing regeneration, and Lindqvist’s artwork will remain in place over the coming year whilst the building is under construction. The series of public artworks commissioned by The Crown Estate and Exemplar in the Regent Street area form a key part of their strategy for regeneration of the public realm.
For this commission, Lindqvist travelled to Scotland and the landscape in the northwest of the country forms the basis of her imagery. The resulting digitally manipulated artwork, The Absurdity of Greener Grass, shows a lone female figure standing on top of a boulder, gazing across the vast stretches of sparse landscape ahead. The image is intended to be suggestive of the figure’s aspiration to see beyond the horizon in an attempt to look outside her immediate boundaries.
The artist says: ‘Horizons are all around us, but they are not just the line that separates earth from sky, but literally the border that separates here from there; now from future. As such, the horizon is an absolute limit of both time and space, and since it constantly changes with our movement, the horizon can never be reached or crossed.’
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