Project fieldwork's newest installation

Feb 04, 2010

“Freedom to Roam” by Swedish artist Henny Linn Kjellberg, installation #6 of the fieldwork project

Members of the fieldwork project collective l-r: Susie Osler, Chris Osler, Erin Robertson and Chris Gosset. Photo courtesy of Suzie Osler

Rural environments are not usually a likely location for public art installations but when Susie Osler first set up her home and shop outside of Maberly years ago, visions of public outdoor art projects began dancing in her head.

In 2008, those dreams became a reality when she along with her brother Chris Osler, Chris Gosset of Almonte and Erin Robertson of Ottawa formed a four-member art collective that resulted in the “fieldwork” project.

Osler, who works from her home studio primarily as a ceramicist producing unique, one of a kind objects and commissions for clients, explained why she branched out into the sphere of public art. “Personally for me this project developed out of the desire to see public art in a rural space and it’s another creative avenue for putting my work out there for the public to see.”

She also underlined a key motivating factor for her in this project. “I’m very interested in the element of surprise and no matter what kind of art that I happen to be making, be it a ceramic piece or an installation it is always an important consideration for me.”

And the fieldwork project is nothing if not surprising. Coming across art work in a farmer’s field in the country is not a common occurrence and is part of what makes the installations so engaging.

As defined on its website the goals of the fieldwork project are “to present site-specific art installations for passers-by to stumble upon, discover, journey to, and explore” and thanks to the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council a total of six installations have been carried out to date at the four acre field on Osler’s property since the project’s inception.

The most recent installation titled “Freedom to Roam” is by Swedish artist Henny Linn Kjellberg and consists of a 300-foot long strip of oversized barb wire fence constructed from wooden poles and fence wire. Hanging from it are over 700 larger than life ceramic barbs that Kjellberg made in Sweden and brought with her to Canada in 3 large suitcases.

Due to its outdoor setting the piece is subtle and easy to miss if one does not take the time for a closer look. When one does one begins to see the fence as an anomaly; it neither holds anything in nor keeps anything out. So what exactly is it all about?

In the artist’s own words the piece is “a comment on land rights and the use of land.” Kjellberg explains in her artist’s statement that in many Nordic countries an individual’s freedom to roam is actually written into the constitution; people are free to roam the land as long as they are respectful of it. Nordic people grow up with the idea that “nature both belongs to everybody and to nobody“.

The work intends to raise questions about the ownership of land: what is public? What is private? And what do these terms actually mean?

The piece also touches on larger issues of war, conflict borders, migration and poses questions like, just exactly who it is that decides who can enter or leave a country, especially those countries experiencing conflict?

Included in the work is a box of “extra” ceramic barbs and on a posted sign at the site the artist invites visitors to take a barb and photograph it at any location they come across currently undergoing some kind of land issue conflict. She also hopes that participants will email her their photos.

Perhaps the most subtle and sober of all of the fieldwork installations to date, Freedom to Roam is most surprising in that simultaneously as one begins to examine the artwork, one also begins to question their own personal beliefs about land issues, land rights and the movements of people and creatures across the land on a variety of scales.

Osler, who produces ceramic art pieces that function mainly as gifts, is thrilled to be a part of the fieldwork project and sees its installations also as a kind of a gift as well.

For myself the project offers everything that a memorable gift can be: thought-provoking, mystifying, engaging, often delightful and most definitively and in this case, always a pleasant visual surprise.

“Freedom to Roam” will be on display until March 21, 2010. From Highway 7 just east of Maberly take the west most entrance to Old Brooke Road and head south for approx. 2km. The field site is on the north side with posted signs marking the installation site. For more information on the fieldwork project please visit www.fieldworkproject.com