藝術(shù)家二人組把老人變成自然奇觀

藝術(shù)家二人組把老人變成自然奇觀

This is the story of an art project that began with three words, typed into Google: grannies, Norway, photographer.

這是一個藝術(shù)項目的故事，以三個詞開始，輸入谷歌:老奶奶，挪威，攝影師。

It was 2011, and the Finnish artist Riitta Ikonen was dreaming up a new proposal related to Nordic folk tales. While studying at school in Brighton, England, Ikonen had developed a friendship with a Norwegian student who had a particularly animated relationship with the natural world.

那是2011年，芬蘭藝術(shù)家麗塔·伊科寧(Riitta Ikonen)正在構(gòu)思一個與北歐民間故事有關(guān)的新方案。在英國布萊頓上學期間，伊科寧與一名挪威學生建立了友誼，這名學生與自然界有著特別活躍的關(guān)系。

"I would go and visit her in Norway, and she would talk to the rocks and the mountains," said Ikonen, who speaks in a melodic accent. "I thought, 'hold on a minute, I'm from Finland, so I obviously appreciate my lakes and bogs and mountains. But I don't really talk to my mushrooms and blueberries. So what's happening here?'"

“我會去挪威看她，她會和巖石和山脈交談，”伊科寧說，她說話的口音很有旋律。“我想，‘等一下，我來自芬蘭，所以我很欣賞我的湖泊、沼澤和山脈。但我不會和我的蘑菇和藍莓說話。那么這里發(fā)生了什么?’”

Imagining that this intimacy had roots in Nordic lore, and that the country's elderly population would be closest to those traditions, Ikonen began to conceive of a project involving Norwegian senior citizens. She would need a collaborator to take photos, so she dropped the appropriate search terms into her browser, and discovered the work of Karoline Hjorth, a photographer whose book of portraits, "Mormormonologene" (2011), is a celebration of Norwegian grandmothers.

伊科寧認為這種親密關(guān)系源于北歐的傳說，而挪威的老年人與這些傳統(tǒng)最接近，于是開始構(gòu)思一個涉及挪威老年人的項目。她需要一個合作伙伴來拍照，所以她在瀏覽器中輸入了合適的搜索詞，并發(fā)現(xiàn)了攝影師卡羅琳·霍爾思的作品，她的肖像書“Mormormonologene”(2011)是對挪威祖母的慶祝。

The meeting between Ikonen and Hjorth that followed would evolve into a eight-year (and ongoing) collaboration known as "Eyes as Big as Plates," featuring excursions to several different countries -- including Greenland, Japan, and the US, with hopes of future travel to Africa and South America. The resulting works are gorgeous, richly imaginative photographs, recently published in a book of the same name.

伊科寧和霍爾思之間的會面將演變成一場為期八年(而且正在進行)的合作，稱為“Eyes as Big as Plates,”其中包括前往幾個不同的國家旅行,包括格陵蘭島,日本和美國,希望未來前往非洲和南美洲。最終的作品是華麗的，富有想象力的照片，最近出版在一本同名的書。

The 60 or so portraits range from the folkloric to the whimsical, poetic, and fantastical. In one image, we see Salme, a friend of Ikonen's late grandmother. The artist duo pictured her wearing a baroque headdress composed of decadent puffs of small white flora. Ikonen and Hjorth consider their subjects collaborators, and in their book, each of them receives a short text to accompany their image. In this case, we are informed that "Salme is placid yet tough, just like the cottongrass growing in the many bogs around her."

這60幅左右的肖像畫，從民間的到異想天開的、詩意的、幻想的都有。在一張照片中，我們看到了Salme, Ikonen已故祖母的朋友。藝術(shù)家二人組的照片中，她戴著一頂巴洛克式的頭飾，頭飾上綴滿了頹廢的白色小花。伊科寧和霍爾思認為他們的主題是合作者，在他們的書中，他們每個人都會收到一段配合他們的圖像的簡短的文字。在這個例子中，我們被告知“Salme是平靜而堅韌的，就像生長在她周圍許多沼澤中的棉草一樣。”

The project is not limited to women; the book also features portraits of elderly men, like Velkkari, who is shown sporting proud blooms of cow parsley from his chest, and Mr. Maruyama, an ikebana flower arranger from Japan who wears a halo of fukinoto, an edible spring vegetable that grows in abundance near his home in Sanjo, in Niigata prefecture.

這個主題并不局限于女性;這本書還展示了老年男性的肖像，比如Velkkari，他展示了胸前盛開的牛歐芹，以及來自日本的插花師Maruyama先生，他戴著用Fukinoto(Fukinoto是一種可食用的春季蔬菜，在他位于新瀉縣三江市的家附近大量生長)做成的花環(huán)。