Lina Selander
dal 5/3/2014 al 26/4/2014
Segnalato da
5/3/2014
Lina Selander
Kunsthall Trondheim, Trondheim
Silphium. New film: a story is told about the ancient, now extinct, plant
In the first sequences of Lina Selander's new film a story is told about the ancient, now extinct, plant silphium. The plant grew on the coast outside the North African town Cyrene - a settlement of Greeks from the over populated island of Thera in 630 BC - which became the main town in the Greek colony, situated in today's Libya. The plant was famous for it's medical usage (it was used as a contraceptive and abortifacient) and for it's richness in flavour, which made it the base of the colony's export. Its importance for the economic wealth was so crucial that the image of silphium was imprinted on the coins. When exploitation of the plant led to extinction, the city declined. As is often the case in Selander's works, the film builds on layers of images and meaning, layers that link history and pre-history to contemporary society, and in which nature as a prerequisite for life is one of the focal points. The human strive for development and expansion, the desire for control over nature, and above all - visual control, depiction and surveillance, is always met by another contradicting force. The nature looks back at us, its eyes empty - a reoccurring image in Selander's film. The other work included in the exhibition, the disassembling and destruction of a digital camera forms a narrative line through the film, whose content in other parts focus on the effects of the nuclear disaster in Hiroshima. Opening March 6th, 7pm, 7.30pm the artist in conversation with curator Helena Holmberg.