Schema

This work is permanently installed in a small forest near Höslwang, in the Chiemsee region (south of Munich), Bavaria. It was constructed as part of Chiemseeart, an art in the landscape project involving a series of large scale permanent works installed in the area near the lake. The project was curated by Andreas Pytlik

Materials are steel, springs, cable, bolts, 10 maple trees

The Process ::

I had one hour onsite before attending a lunch meeting with the town mayor and Chiemsee project organisers to explain the work I would be making. I had some difficulty at this point convincing the key people that I was capable of completing the work, as it was ambitious in scale involving steel engineering installed at a 6 meter height in ten different trees. The time available was short, only five working days and did I mention that it was still snowing? The other thing that concerned the committee was that my design might cause damage to the trees, involving as it did large steel cuffs bolted around the trunks and then connected to each other under tension. I had my suspicions that some of the dubious attitude came from the fact that I am young(ish) blonde female, but a lot of fast drawing on the spot to explain the work in detail, plus a certain bloodyminded effort of will, carried the day and I was given the go ahead to start the work. Pytlik confessed to me later -after we had pulled it off, that I had been right about their doubt in my ability...Bavaria is pretty conservative and they are just not used to female sculptors working with steel. His butt was on the line as curator of the project, I appreciated his faith in me.

A key factor in the development of the work was the community that I made it for, as work progressed the locals took a keen interest and I was invited to dinner with a group. Suddenly after the all male days I had been having in the engineering shop and the mayoral chambers I was thrown with the women, only one of whom spoke english. I never knew any of their names as they were introduced by their husbands names. This dinner was a turning point for me, the women seemed to regard me with a kind of superstitious awe and dread, bombarding me with questions via the overworked interpreter; the first of which was where was my husband and didnt he mind me haring off around the world by myself? I seemed to represent a completely alien world just by existing.

The work I made was shaped by my experience there and what it meant to me evolved as the form did. The network I was making in the forest became about the social networks I was negotiating and an uncomfortable balance between security and restriction in a more general way. I deliberately linked trees of the same variety, ten mature self sown Maples in an otherwise generic commercial Pine plantation. Ironically and poetically the commercial timber was much weaker than the Maple and had recently been devastated by a violent storm that literaly left the native wood standing isolated in a debris of broken Pine. These survivor trees were the ones I selected for my work. I called the finished network Schema and explained it to a group of school children with the help of some skipping ropes, by getting them to connect to each other the same way the trees were connected to each other. I deliberately left a single tree unconnected from the community, this tree was named artist. The kids understood immediately and explained it to the adults. The Mayor of Hoslwang shook my hand and thanked me sincerely, speaking to me directly for the first time since I arrived.

The experience I had in Bavaria couldnt have been more different than that in Sarajevo only days before, I was isolated geographically, by language and socially in both places; in Sarajevo I was scared and cold, but in Bavaria I was lonely and had to prove my professionalism before I could work. In contrast to Sarajevo I was well supported technically, clean well equipped workshop, warm bed, good food, everything I needed provided and I was even paid a stipend when the work was finished. It was a tough exerience for completely different reasons. However I produced a work of high professional standard in a short period of time and successfully negotiated the commissioning process so that not only was I satisfied with the result, so was my deeply conservative client.