Fleeting presence is an installation artist Hanne Ekkeren and I made in a forested area near El Bruc, a village in Catalonia. This is part of a series of collaborative art projects Ekkeren and I have been working on since 2019
We are both interested in the kind of spaces you find at the edges of most cities where nature and civilization collide. People at the fringe of society often find shelter in these places that are unnoticed or uncared for, making their nests from whatever materials are at hand.
We wanted to explore the idea of creating a form of shelter from materials that would be easily found or obtained. The construction was made from used bamboo-rods and rapped in thin packaging plastic. The translucent and flimsy materials offered little protection, exaggerating a feeling of being vulnerable. The thin plastic moved in the wind as if someone inside were breathing, a ghostly presence of an invisible dweller.
In a clearing nearby mugs were left on the ground as if someone had just been sitting there. They were made of unburned clay found locally, and pinched into rough forms so they resembled the ground they were placed on
Mushrooms made of plasticine creeping through the cracks
