Carola Grahn: Trädgränsen

In several new installations, artist Carola Grahn explores our relationship to nature and the potential that Sami worldviews and ways of life might hold today. In traditional Sami cosmologies, humans are a part of nature rather than the rulers of it, and everything in the universe is interconnected and interdependent. Similarly, spirituality is not separate from the physical world; gods and ancestors live in the branches of trees, lakes, animals, and underneath the stars. Grahn does not offer any easy answers for translating this view of the relationship between humankind and nature in order to apply it to the present. Instead, through materiality, her works invite critical and curious reflections on our use, or misuse, of nature, which we often take from but rarely give the forest and the placement of her works in the park at Wanås, the artist poses questions about land ownership, the application and value of its resources, and different understandings of belonging to a place. Grahn evokes Sami worldviews, a creative resource for reflection and future thinking. For the same reason, the exhibition title, Trädgränsen, is intentionally left open to multiple interpretations. It positions the forest as a threshold, as an entryway to alternate modes of sensing and understanding the natural landscape and the world at large.