Human
Nature/ Beaver house was originally shown at the Minneapolis Institute
of Art as part of the Human Nature/Series. The new version
is titled Human Nature/ Exploitation and includes moving images.
Under
the roof of nature are government cabinets where in front are
photos 0f human behavior. The photos represent a broad spectrum
of human nature; culture, art, society, love, hate, war, peace.
Opposite
the photographs are beaver skulls, which I stumbled on in the
wilderness in Northern Minnesota, the remains of long ago trapping.
That is when I got the idea for a multi-media piece to address
the exploitation of nature. Beaver were trapped to fulfill
the need of fashion craving Europe for beaver hats. Their
population numbers were brought close to extinction.
This history is a fitting metaphor for exploitation.
A
human being swimming in water represents the most intense connection
to nature. It is a metaphor for swimming through time.
You will always carry the human condition. We have the ability
to affect change in the quality of our relationship to nature
and to our own nature. If we want to survive we have to create
a New Harmony and respect.
The
work talks about exploitation of nature. It was important and
interesting for me to build a structure in collaboration with
a wild animal. I used logs and the material from an abandoned
beaver dam to build a house of nature. Four beaver felled logs
are placed in the way that the chewed up ends are resting on the
floor to balance this structure. On top, I recreated a beaver
den. This together symbolizes nature as a whole.
