THE PUMA, THE STRANGER & THE MOUNTAIN
Collaborative project with Trevor Flinn at The Old Station, Dunkeld, Victoria.
The project was a part of the Next Wave’s Regional Kick off Grant 2007 and later showed again as a part of the Next Wave Festival, at Platform, Melbourne 2008
The project was a part of the Next Wave’s Regional Kick off Grant 2007 and later showed again as a part of the Next Wave Festival, at Platform, Melbourne 2008
INSTALLING & EXHIBITION OPENING:
The Old Station, Dunkeld, Victoria
Cecilia Fogelberg, Trevor Flinn and Michael Porter
Cecilia Fogelberg, Trevor Flinn and Michael Porter
PLATFORM - MELBOURNE CBD
Show: Cecilia Fogelberg and Trevor Flinn. Next Wave Festival, 2007
Exhibition text:
I was born in a small county village in Sweden and grew up having the deep forests of Småland (a southern county of Sweden) as my backyard and playground. As my parents just had moved to the village where me and my two sisters where raised, only a few years before I was born, we where somehow to become the family ‘not from there’. We where different in many ways i.e. me and my sisters had a different accent from the local kids and we where in some regards always bound to be strangers.
When I later, at the age of 16, moved away from the village to attend an art boarding high school, I started to realise that I was looking for a place to call home. I moved around a lot during the following years and it wasn’t before I came to Melbourne in 1999 that I found a home and an identity that I could relate to; I somehow in Melbourne found a home for the stranger within and I could finally fully rest in the identity of being a stranger.
As I during the last 8 years have acclimatised to be a Melbournian, I still find it challenging to be ‘an Australian’ and I’m still feeling quiet alienated in the Australian landscape. I often feel like I am ‘going abroad’, like actually going to a different country when I leave Melbourne. This is a very strong feeling and I sometimes have to think twice about; what language I need to use at the road stop restaurants/petrol stations, and can I use my normal bank card to pay? I understand that this must sound amusing and rather confused, but it is incredible strong and sometimes embarrassing when I without thinking i.e. say things like ‘I want to go back to Australia’ to my friends after a weekend at Apollo Bay. I do have an intellectual understanding of that I work and live in the country Australia (and that I am now an Australian citizen), but when it comes to a physical experience I am truly nothing else than a Swedish Melbournian (not even a Victorian!)
My time in Dunkeld and my work with Trevor Flinn have therefore been a great opportunity for me to spend some time away from ‘my comfort zone’ in Melbourne, and through Trevor’s local understanding of the physical environment of Dunkeld, be guided to mountain tops and local stories. My paintings are a result of my Dunkeld experiences and the contemporary longings a teenager would face today, as well as the ‘brought back memories’ of growing up in a small country town in Sweden during the 80’s. There is an element of the longing to ‘grow up and to go to places/the big cities’, as well as there is the wholesome experience of, what I still believe; the privilege of growing up with the nature as your playground; a playground where you are close to life and death, and live in the understanding of reproduction, seasons and the awesome powers of nature. Really, you don’t get much more street wise than that!
Cecilia Fogelberg, 2007
Painting titles:
1. When I grow up I want to be like Damian Hurst.
2. He was a linguistic genius and could communicate in so many different ways, but he could never find a sense of belonging.
3. Strange Landscape (Dunkeld after bushfire).
4. They could chat for hours, they had so many things in common; they came from a strange place, had a past drug addiction and they both loved cats.
Size: 40” x 44”
Material: acrylic paint, shellac, gloss glaze on primed linen
Show also featuring: digital prints on paper and soft sculptures (balaclavas)
When I later, at the age of 16, moved away from the village to attend an art boarding high school, I started to realise that I was looking for a place to call home. I moved around a lot during the following years and it wasn’t before I came to Melbourne in 1999 that I found a home and an identity that I could relate to; I somehow in Melbourne found a home for the stranger within and I could finally fully rest in the identity of being a stranger.
As I during the last 8 years have acclimatised to be a Melbournian, I still find it challenging to be ‘an Australian’ and I’m still feeling quiet alienated in the Australian landscape. I often feel like I am ‘going abroad’, like actually going to a different country when I leave Melbourne. This is a very strong feeling and I sometimes have to think twice about; what language I need to use at the road stop restaurants/petrol stations, and can I use my normal bank card to pay? I understand that this must sound amusing and rather confused, but it is incredible strong and sometimes embarrassing when I without thinking i.e. say things like ‘I want to go back to Australia’ to my friends after a weekend at Apollo Bay. I do have an intellectual understanding of that I work and live in the country Australia (and that I am now an Australian citizen), but when it comes to a physical experience I am truly nothing else than a Swedish Melbournian (not even a Victorian!)
My time in Dunkeld and my work with Trevor Flinn have therefore been a great opportunity for me to spend some time away from ‘my comfort zone’ in Melbourne, and through Trevor’s local understanding of the physical environment of Dunkeld, be guided to mountain tops and local stories. My paintings are a result of my Dunkeld experiences and the contemporary longings a teenager would face today, as well as the ‘brought back memories’ of growing up in a small country town in Sweden during the 80’s. There is an element of the longing to ‘grow up and to go to places/the big cities’, as well as there is the wholesome experience of, what I still believe; the privilege of growing up with the nature as your playground; a playground where you are close to life and death, and live in the understanding of reproduction, seasons and the awesome powers of nature. Really, you don’t get much more street wise than that!
Cecilia Fogelberg, 2007
Painting titles:
1. When I grow up I want to be like Damian Hurst.
2. He was a linguistic genius and could communicate in so many different ways, but he could never find a sense of belonging.
3. Strange Landscape (Dunkeld after bushfire).
4. They could chat for hours, they had so many things in common; they came from a strange place, had a past drug addiction and they both loved cats.
Size: 40” x 44”
Material: acrylic paint, shellac, gloss glaze on primed linen
Show also featuring: digital prints on paper and soft sculptures (balaclavas)
MEDIA COVERAGE:
