Ø

 The project ‘Ø’ is a site-responsive creation based on the island of Refshaleøen, Denmark. I spent two weeks on the island with the idea to collect personal stories through conversation and the building of relationships. My aim was to shed light on the interconnections and relations in a community that are vital to the makeup of a places identity. I entered the space making sure not supersede the community’s existing ownership of the site as a repository of memory but attempting to use my artwork as a way to build new layers onto the land that add meaning for the people who reside in these spaces. In considering the social use of the site as a continuing narrative of which I was one of many authors, I became interested in how stories can be drawn out of the land and written into a visual essay. I knew I wanted to create a book, but alongside this also wanted to create a tactile object that could speak more broadly to the emotions of this place. I designed a textile with the idea of mapping in a more generous way, speaking more to the emotional topography rather than the material form of the land. The map became the main character in my work, another member of the community and also an extension of myself.

Walking across the slip like road, the land unrolling around like a never ending tapestry, I stepped onto the island. As I bustle by an orchard of iron, casting long shadows that murmur in the salty breeze, I hear the click and clack of work, as if someone is sliding beads onto thread.  Buildings rise into the sky like the jagged edge of a key, along the concrete wreath that wraps around the island. Opening up to a roomy sky, laced with grey and yellow, I chased the circles and their places to find the sun glinting on the rusting underbelly of her boat. The wide windows seem like an ever changing illustration, as the clouds hound the sun. the inside - sewing high waisted polka dot underwear as she perches effortlessly on a wooden stool - resembles a cradle, calmly rocking. A kind turn to the edges of her mouth as she carefully guides the material under the foot to the rhythmic hum of the sewing machine. As if the boat were filled with bees, it’s silent, other than this sweet buzz and the gentle slap of the waves against the hull.  Melting through the balmy air, she gets up from her stool and walks over to the stove. Opening the door, the bones of the boat are basked in an amber glow, blushing. I wanted to reach out and run my fingers through the blanket of molten air, only to realise the empty stretch of my arm and the gentle sway of the boat on glossy water that tips me off balance. As the blue-grey twilight blankets the boat in a humble silence, she fills her rusting kettle and places it on the stove.

Shades of blue and orange dominate the island of Refshaleoen, worthy players in a game of compliments. A blue washed wooden hut on the riverside, it’s clapboard exterior peeling, is flanked by the mustard hull of an old ice breaker. A rusting steel ladder rises from milky blue waters to meet concrete. A lamp casts a warm glow over cups of tea and sticky pastries. Pink salmon sleeping on it’s mottled blue plate. The flickering flame of a candle dances in front of the window pane as indigo hour sets in. The fluorescent orange life saving ring hung at the waters edge. Freshly chopped wood, it’s amber hue contrasting the bruised soil. A bouy bobbing on azurite ripples.

Blue fills my vision as the waves rush to meet the sky. Marbled in swirls and staccato stitches, water runs along the line of concrete, dry. I watch as those lazy eyes misplace milky sunsets for woven skylines. Straw like curls are tucked behind her ear by the hands of a shipbuilder - her hands - left index finger bleeding, but she doesn’t seem to care. Black veins of timber seem to extend beyond these three little houses and flood into the aching soil. Soil that clods her steel capped boots and sleeps under her fingernails. The continuous trade of oranges and blues that is dancing beyond the glass window pane, is slowly muzzled by beige mists. She tells me of her grandmother, painting an image of a wise woman standing outside her toy-like home at 4am, soaking wet, admiring the glistening lights of the huge ships that slide silently through the harbour.

O

“Obviously I haven’t experienced it as a shipyard but I grew up on the other side of the harbour. It was a totally forbidden area, where normal people weren’t allowed. So it’s funny now to be on the other side, remembering sitting together with my grandmother watching the boats passing by. I can almost see the spot from here.”

As I wander through the yawning landscape, the gleaming white crests of dimpled waves talk to the khaki of drying grass, their silken tune lulling my eager steps. Scattered with pockets of blueberry bushes the tracks and roads that lace the island find me standing in a small clearing, hooded with drunken leaves.

O

“What I found was land between the trees, with a huge parking lot in front of it so you would have a huge open expanse in front of you. The houses would be surrounded by blueberries and covered by trees, so that was really very, very nice actually. To live under the trees, I really miss the sounds of the leaves.”

As if the boat were filled with bees, it’s silent, other than this sweet buzz and the gentle slap of the waves against the hull.  Melting through the balmy air, she gets up from her stool and walks over to the stove. Opening the door, the bones of the boat are basked in an amber glow, blushing. I wanted to reach out and run my fingers through the blanket of molten air, only to realise the empty stretch of my arm and the gentle sway of the boat on glossy water that tips me off balance. As the blue-grey twilight blankets the boat in a humble silence, she fills her rusting kettle and places it on the stove.

Her full lips hum to the incessant grinding of wind against the raw wooden walls. Meditating on the moor of concrete and steal, the curve in her lower back straightens slightly as she stoops to unpleat my hair. To own the hearth, ash dripping its silver tap of evening, means sharing a cup of steaming tea, or warming cold hands after the fog of day. A mispronunciation of light, the flame opening like a blade, wounding. The water is warm as I fill its silken chest, quietening the caves between each glassy hair that tenderly blankets my body. In the absence of sleep she plays me a song of the whistling kettle and the familiar crackle of a radio, tuning.

“You go back to times where people were sharing. Where people would meet once a week in these bath houses, and I think that’s not such a bad idea, to think about what could you share.”

Pressing up against the glassy wind, perhaps she has forgotten to plant her petals like a series of frilly underskirts in the rusting soil. A tall set of windows seem to frame the sky in a perfect dome as I watch her stoop, touching each gentle cheek so as not to bruise the soft fruit. On either side stand small saplings, their threadlike form imitating the gentle sway of her hips, leather satchel brimming with a fleshy harvest. To caress the iron roofs as the sun does when it slips into the sea, looks to inflate the crumbing step of a passer by as he hastens towards home. Waiting, she laughs at his eagerness, hoping only that he doesn’t see her there, crouched among the plum trees. I stay because I can’t leave, rooted in this thick soil. As the concrete walkway becomes freckled with evening, a song breaks out. The oozey hum of spokes spinning, chains whirring, and clack into fourth gear, the frustrated ring of a bell. Swinging her left leg over the bar and settling into the saddle, she too joins the chorus of bicycles murmuring their way to fireside tea and hot stewed fruit.

“And you can see the trees over by the old boats. The story is, workers who were not taking the boat but walking or biking to Refshaleøen, they placed trees there with apples, cherries and plums, so that they had something to catch and take with them home. And you can see that still. That way out there, you can feel the old spirit.”