Cow box

2007–2008

"Light is movement that becomes visible in the encounter with something else. Art takes shape in the eye of the beholder, also an encounter. Light makes it happen."

Bad thoughts hurt. Bad thoughts may come stumbling into my mind like gloom-laden drops of a revolting awfulness. It is as if my unconscious gets stuck in the mud and its mobility is reduced. A veil of darkness obscures my sight. I can no longer see what I am thinking. When the image of movement can no longer be conceptualised, it has to be “made”. Letting the body take over is a way of cleansing awareness and releasing movement into freedom. There is nothing therapeutic or romantic about this, just hard work. The grief remains. It is so vast that there is not enough room for tears behind my eyelids even though I keep them squeezed shut. And then it is easy to lose your balance as well. Nature is cruel to have made us dependent on light, when it is darkness that contains the strongest images, thoughts and dreams. We simply have to keep our eyes open.

This is why I built a box full of light, in which a cow lives. The cow in my box has got the look of a choreographer. Her back turned toward the surrounding world, she is looking straight at the changes in the artificial lighting of the stage. Light is movement which becomes visible in the encounter with something else. Art takes form in the eye of the beholder, which is an encounter too. Light makes it happen. Even for a cow.

The Cow box is a piece for an exhibition at Dansens hus in Stockholm in 2007/2008.

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