Anette Friedrich Johannessen

Stone Mapping

 

Through drawing I have the explored the lines and cracks in stones I have collected while walking. They come from a variety of locations. Some are round and almost soft in your hand. Others are rough with deep lines carved into them. What they have in common is their age. They are the absolute symbol of a time before the creation of a cultured landscape.

I believe that art in public space is an expression of democratic thought, where art can be experienced by everyone. Public art meets people in a larger and more complex context than in the closed art space. Your audience is the people who is walking by at that very moment.

The same happens when you perform in nature. The freedom we have in the public space is highly relevant when we speak of “allemannsretten”, our public right of access to nature. To work in the landscape is a way to work yourself into the landscape. Not only do you see it, but you acquire a knowledge of understanding it.The wild landscape and the cultural landscape are for me the absolute free public space.

In my work, I have created my own performance character, an explorer / walker, who through various exercises in the landscape researches the relationship between the walker/explorer and his/hers relationship to the landscape through different types of navigation systems. The walker/explorer becomes a part of the landscape by spending time in it, and then taught how to preserve it and function in it.

By becoming a walker/explorer in the landscape, you participate in the very design of it. Your presence, touch and movement leaves a number of traces, often in already ascended paths. The paths, or the lines one applies to the landscape, leaves behind a myriad of networks, all signs of movement and growth. As soon as you move, you participate in the relationship between nature and culture, and between man and ecology.

 

Gjennom tegning har jeg utforsket linjene og sprekkene i stein som jeg har samlet mens jeg har vandret i landskapet. De kommer fra en rekke steder. Noen er runde og nesten myke i hånden. Andre er grove med dype linjer skåret inn i dem. Det de har felles er deres alder. De er det absolutte symbolet på en tid før vi utformet det kulturelle landskap.

Anette Friedrich Johannessen

Anette Friedrich Johannessen is a visual artists living in Bergen, Norway. She holds a BFA from Camberwell College of Arts, London. Along with her artistic practice, she is artistic leader/ Chairman of Performance Art Bergen and co-organizer of PAB OS.

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