About Land and Sea

Where Land and Sea Meet - written piece by Vala Lind Júlíusdóttir


The exhibition

Where Land and Sea Meet is a conceptual art collaboration created by five artists from Denmark, Iceland, Scotland, and The Netherlands. The artists aspire to illustrate the frontier where land and sea meet, the fluid affiliation between man and nature.

They further explore and explain in their individual nature how this affiliation is influenced, by the dynamic duo of man and machine, highlighting its consequences and future possibilities in relations to alternative means of harvesting natural resources.

By a travelling exhibition of multimedia, photographic works, sculpture and visual arts, the artists express their natural perception as their unique backgrounds towards where land and see meet as to our natural surroundings we all refer to as home.

The artists which are divided by different lands are united by the sea, although their historical, cultural and social background differs, this unique combination of artists shares a common heritage, namely the sea. By artistic practice and collaboration the artists aim to unite their common heritage, thus strengthening the ties they share, of past, present and future.

prologue

These two elements; land and sea symbolize diversity, land is conceived as solid and definite whereas the sea as flowing and mystical. While land has provided us with stability and security, the sea has granted us the opportunities to explore and advance. In the past, the sea was the only passage where land ended. Commerce and communication globally relied solely upon the sea in the past. Land and sea provides food as materials necessary for man’s survival; his very subsistence depends upon their existence.

In between land and sea there is man. The element of man has greatly influenced land and sea. Man’s nature to harvest natural resources and manage them is evident throughout history, dating back to the pre-historic man to the present day. His domination over various technologies has made him able to manage these two elements up to a great extent. Today man has more means to utilize natural resources than ever before; technology has made it possible to harvest oil, gas, water and wind for man’s exploitation. Where land and sea meet, there are endless opportunities for man to harvest.