Amalie ‘Sveske’ Ourø,
Green, green, - grass!
·Residency: 3 April – 31 May 2024
·Meet & greet w/ collective planting and sowing: 11 April, 15:00-17:00
·Presentation in growth: 12 April – 31 May 2024
·On view in the cinema, Surrendering to Domesticated Pieces of Grass: 18 April – 30 May 2024
·Opening: Friday, 31 May, 16:00-19:00
·Exhibition: 31 May – 15 June 2024
·Collective grass dying experiment: Saturday 15 June, 11:00-16:00
For her project at Hotel Maria Kapel, artist Amalie ‘Sveske’ Ourø will cover the chapel floor with grass that will grow slowly throughout her residency. This monumental installation is part of the artist’s ongoing investigation of the human relation to grass, as the domestication of grass marks one of the major shifts in the history of humankind. Dwelling on the way we cultivated our land and maintained our clean-cut grass in strictly squared fields, Sveske’s project reflects on complex political topics such as the soaring biodiversity crisis, the farmers' strikes and global warming, as well as symbolically on our society’s ecosystem at large.
The cultivation of land
While it may go unnoticed by most, the striking abundance of grass fields in The Netherlands is the outcome of centuries of careful engineering, selection and nurturing of the right species for grazing and farming. With the rise of modern agriculture, feudal ownership and industrial farming, the land was subdivided into square plots, turning the Dutch landscape into a patchwork of green — subsequently impoverishing biodiversity, impacting our climate, and adding economic strain on farmers’ livelihoods. Coming from a farmer’s family herself, Sveske will take time to get in contact with farmers, biologists and sociologists to negotiate these issues with a poetic and soft approach — not in terms of black or white but in a multitude of green hues. She invites the public to a meditative environment where the human relation to grass is not only discussed from afar but experienced from up close.
Well-maintained, clean-cut and strictly squared
With the project Green, green, — grass!, Sveske also draws links between the strictly maintained grass lawn and the way our current society seems to value a homogenous mass of people who are easy to control and ‘cut down’ when needed. This analogy is nothing new: André Le Nôtre designed the gardens of Versailles to resemble the king’s power over his dominion and subjects. As our society pushes its metaphorical garden into a square shape, so does it prune the diversity needed to sustain as a healthy, inclusive and thriving ecosystem. Sveske’s installation is an open invitation to think materially, symbolically and metaphorically about our relation to nature, specifically green, green, grass!
Amalie ‘Sveske’ Ourø (1994) is a Danish artist who has been living, studying and working in the Netherlands since 2018. After she graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2022, she relocated to Zwaag in the North of Noord-Holland. Her work, mostly performative and community-based, can be best described as art-anthropology and is inspired by her curiosity about human existence and the inner workings of our society. Through her installations she actively engages with the audience through acts of play and subversion, inviting them to think critically about diverse societal urgencies within the field of sociology, urbanism, and ecology — encouraging meaningful and sustainable change along the way. She exhibited in The Netherlands and abroad at Ron Mandos Gallery (Amsterdam), De Tweede Kamer (Den Haag), The Long Now (San Francisco), Arti et Amicitiae (Amsterdam), HYB4 Gallery (Hybernská Campus, Praag) and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam).
-
The project Green, green, – grass! is sponsored by: Bio-Kultura