'Borrowed Land' installation at Færderbiennalen, 2024.
Collaboration between ACT!, CLAYA and Ask Holmen.
'Borrowed land' explores the relationship between the built environment, climate crisis and environmental degradation. At the heart of our proposal lies an understanding of the natural landscape as a resource that we borrow, draw from and return to. Using local materials, created by glaciers that swept across the landscape thousands of years ago, leaving behind clay and stones, we transform these materials into architectural components that are not only rooted in the place, but can also return to it when its time is up.
Through a unique approach to material selection and construction techniques, we seek to create an installation that reflects these themes, but also interacts with them in a deep and meaningful way.
In the context of soil depletion, ‘Borrowed land’ is an installation that explores the concepts of circularity and decay, contemplating the concept of borrowing materials, and allowing them to return to the earth. The project looks at different techniques and densities of building with rammed earth, and celebrates erosion and decay as esthetic qualities.
The landscapes in these areas were shaped by glaziers several thousand years ago. Building with clay has historic tradition, and withholds great potential as a circular building material. This project aims to delve into the multidimensional sustainability of raw clay and earth, which encompasses ecological benefits from its circularity, economic advantages through waste reduction, and social ability to connect people to nature. The installation utilizes clay and soil that is already exposed in construction work in Tønsberg (and often otherwise end up as waste).
The assembled collective working on the proposal has common deep rooted values concerning preservation of nature and environmental degradation, and are working on these topics through different fields of expertise and techniques in their practices. The collective was initiated by ACT!, closely collaborating with Ask Holmen and Claya on further development and construction of the project.
