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URBAN LAND ART - a concept for a park in Finland
Land Art in the urban environment
exploring concepts
The municipality of Kajaani, in the center of Finland, was excavating
and enlarging a hydroelectric tunnel in 1994 and 1995. The debris was
being deposited on the south side of the river in the center of the city
- the location of the Suvanto park, Suvantopuisto. During the
preparation for my retrospective exhibition in the Kajaani Museum of
Fine Art, the city asked me to make a concept for an extension of the
park which already existed along this shore of the river.
Instead
of adhering to the conventional way these things happen, i.e. simply
moving the shoreline outward with the rock fill, I decided to make the
action explicit - keeping the original shoreline intact and create a
distinct area in the river. Whereas the result of the traditional method
would - as time goes by - appear to always have been there and hide any
change in the character of the urban landscape, I to the contrary wanted
to make and keep the change perceivable. Another reason for my choice
was the fact that there is actually no clear-cut demarcation between
nature and where a town or city in Finland begins. A natural looking
park along the river in Kajaani is really not much more than an artificial
piece of nature. I decided to make a truly urban park, based on
constructivist geometry, "the essential condition for any architectonic
form" as architect Díaz Morales said about Luis Barragán's
architecture. Kajaani deserved an urban park instead of another human
made imitated version of nature which with its majestic presence is
only a fifteen minute walk away in any direction. No surrogate brook or rock formation
needed to be copied here.
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3D anaglyph photographs of my sculpture
works©author: Lucien den Arend
© 1998/present denarend.com
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