MODERNE RUINER

1.-17. feb 2019

WHEN SURROUNDINGS DISAPPEAR.
You may have experienced returning to a place after many years and not recognizing it, like in a dream. Perhaps it is because you have transformed the place in your memories, or maybe it is because the place is changed by nature or by the people who live there. Time can change places. Trees grow, buildings fall or are demolished and something new is built up. Buildings can be perceived as durable, like nature also can be perceived as permanent because changes occur so slowly. But perhaps now more than ever, we have a feeling that nature and our surroundings are changing faster and faster. The climate is changing nature. New ways of working and living change our housing development.
When surroundings disappear, something also changes within ourselves. What I surround myself with, characterizes and shapes me in the same way that I characterize and shape my surroundings. For example, the visual expression and aesthetics of a building will make an imprint on the people who live there, pass by it, or overlook it. Therefore, Engen, Findreng and Fredriksen remind us that although everything is perishable, although everything, even yourself, one day irrevocably will be gone, there are still memories and shadows of memories.
Excerpt from text by Mirjam Kristensen, author

MODERNE RUINER (Modern ruins) is a group consisting of craft artist Elisabeth Engen and the artists Astrid Findreng and Grethe Britt Fredriksen. The collaboration started in 2009. The exhibition at Babel is the group’s tenth exhibition. Moderne ruiner have also participated in Høstutstillingen, Norske kunsthåndverkeres Årsutstilling and Trøndelagsutstillingen.