Ouroboros
“Ouroboros”
FLUK (BGK Svendborg) year-exhibition (2025)
Materials: reinforcement mesh, foam, stones from Ertebølle beach.
Ouroboros – A snake who eats itself starting from the tail, symbolising death and rebirth.
This artwork consists of two sculptures that talks with one another.
One towers over the viewer, it is a kind of wall almost. It stands tall, strong and threatening in the room, an obstacle on the way.
At the very top sits foam and stones mixed together, they’ve climbed this hard and unforgiving ladder. Together they’ve reached the top, though there’s still pieces left of the ladder mixed within them, even though they’ve reached the light, rust, coal and ask is smudged at the places where foam and reinforcement mesh meet.
The other sculpture, not nearly as tall, stretches itself so one has to cram through trying to get by. It is not threatening the viewer but rather the stones and foam, threatening to imprison them. It is undetermined however, who is going behind bars. The sculpture is a form of scale, it tilts from one to another, as the boxes of reinforcement mesh sway over the stones and foam.
This piece talks about the battle of equal rights, how long we’ve gotten and how far we still have to go. As well as all that work that has been put into where we stand today, is threatened by a new wave of anti-feminism and old conservative gender-role thoughts, which has overtaken multiple Social Medias, and can be seen taking seed in the younger generation.
Text made for the exhibition:
We live in a strange time, where we in one end, have gotten for far in the battle of equal rights, men are able to express themselves emotionally and be vulnerable without it being taboo. All while women are able to take control and be bossy without being called a bitch for it. It has been a hard fight climbing up the patriarchal ladder, but we have finally almost reached the top, here we can let people live their lives and be who they are. All parts has reached this point, and has helped lift each other up to the last bit of the top.
But even so, something worrisome is happening at the same time, a sharp turn has happened in the opposite end. Here, old conservative ideas has been brought back to life, ideas about gender-roles and social norms.
The younger generation, who uses Social Media on the daily, is being blasted with intense opinions about how to be a real man, how women should be treated and which rights different groups of people can have. Social Media like Tiktok pushes these ideals to the very front, and Incel-culture as well as Andrew Tate has the microphone constantly. The young people are pulled down, sinking into this anti-feministic- and women-hating mindset, which leads to jealousy and anger towards everything and everyone, as well as self-hatred. And it can be seen clearly today, how many puts themselves in a prison of these ideals and becomes more narrowminded people, who brings the anger further, makes others feel less than, and in some cases become violent.
We live in a strange time, where both end of the scale is happening, to parts of history meeting – a battle we might never see an end to – a snake eating itself.
Process
For this art piece, the idea making and building took a month, and the sculptures themselves took a week to complete.
There were many things that was a first in the process of this piece.
To explain the idea behind this phenomenon that is happening today, the gap between equal rights and youth culture, and to try and communicate it via abstract sculptures.
As well as experiment and explore the materials I had chosen.
It should be said though, that my father gave a big helping hand in this artwork too, getting things ready, buying materials and helping with cutting up and welding the reinforcement mesh.
He has been a big help regarding this piece, and deserves part of the credit.
As stated, this project needed welding, so all the different pieces of reinforcement mesh were able to connect and carry itself.
I had already made sketches before we began the project, though they were heavily modified through out the process, since none of us had tried welding before.
Click on the video here to see how cool my father looks as he welds B)