Eva Kreuger
Artist | Photographer
Days without planes + Sky Sculptures
With the outbreak of Covid-19 lockdowns and isolation became a part of daily life. As an ode to this withdrawal and the inner world, I aim for a reflective work with room for slowing down and stillness. Taking the time to look at the outside world from a distance.
I wonder if I can reflect on what’s happening outside with the use of my archive and collections. And how can a studio space enhance this process? The relationship between the inside and the outside.
During the first lockdown in 2020 I photographed the bright blue skies. Where I live, close to a large international airport, usually multiple plains pass every day. But at this time the sky was completely empty, without lines or clouds. A bright blue reminder of freedom and careless summer days.
In the studio I build wooden shapes and frames that I covered in prints of the sky. Structures that couldn’t stand on their own and needed the support of heavy stone blocks. Searching for ways to keep them standing. I photographed every sculpture and because of closed stores, used the materials again for new versions. The final work that remained where photographs.
When I got selected to take part in the Futures Photography exhibition at the Melkweg Expo I got the opportunity to re-make one of the sculptures, for real this time. The installation includes other elements from my archives that I have been working on, like the non-existent landscapes created by combining found footage images of mountains, lakes and forests. Natural forces that remind us we are not in power. Non-existing views of landscapes we long to escape to, after spending so much time at the same place, inside. My work reflects on the longing for the new, the open and the outside.