Wood sculptures 2019
Bass wood, hand carving, linseed oil, paint

Video (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/p/B3l42x-BE99/

In the book by Astrid Lindgren, Emil I Lönneberga invites the poor and elderly with disabilities from the almshouse and gives them all Christmas food that is in the house. When a person took the last thing on the dish, it was called ”taken tabberas”. Tabelras is a preview of the Latin tabu­la rasa, a painting without writing.

A building without a ramp is like an empty canvas. When I was asked to design a ramp for Almskagården, a jugend house from 1910 by architect Bertel Jung, it was obvious that I would make it from wood. The bass wood figures represent the poor and disabled who are finally able to satisfy their cultural hunger in the exhibition space of the Loviisa city.

Ramps are a new layer in our building heritage that reflects the evolution of human rights. They can also be implemented in old buildings without breaking previous structures. We have already imported electricity into old buildings. We have pulled the water pipes inside and built inner toilets. We have wired our homes to connect the phones, TV and later the internet. Nowadays we understand that no-one can be excluded of common affairs and it is only positive that this thinking is also reflected as ramps on the facades.

P.S. Unfortunately, the bass wood and glue seams did not like the rainy summer, so the sculptures will move indoors in Loviisa in the end of 2019.