Nature as Infrastructure - Conversation with Gitte Juul
As part of the online project Nature as Infrastructure by The Winter Office.
REGARDING WEEDS – A Conversation between Artist / Architect Gitte Juul and Hugo Hopping
Danish architect Gitte Juul and Hugo Hopping discuss some of the exhibitions that took place at InstantHerlev Institute over a ten year period, and which fostered the knowledge and generated the energy for the production of the lithographic prints that have become the central artworks for The Winter Office.
They will discuss Gitte Juul’s project from 2011, FRONTGARDENKITCHEN. This was an outdoor installation where Juul planted weeds, flower and edible plants, in the front garden at InstantHerlev. As part of the project she invited the audience to pick their own plants and make salads from these plants that she had cultivated on site, and participate in an alfresco dining experience. The weeds and plants were later covered up with Asphalt.
From this point, the conversation will focus on The Winter Office’s exhibition By Invitation Only in 2014, where the group broke through the asphalt, subsequently poured over the front garden by another project years later, to foster the growing of the weeds hidden underneath. At the request of the group, Anja Franke, Artist and Director of InstantHerlev institute, photographed the weeds, and it was these images which were then used to produce the lithographic prints.
The conversation will also place emphasis on the longitudinal strategy of this project, and how through this, the group is generating sustainable processes around artistic research and site studies.
Gitte Juul graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and now works across disciplines in the fields architecture, urban development and contemporary art. In her practice she works directly on site and in close collaboration with the local area. This ‘in situ’ way of working helps to evoke local knowledge about the places and situations that are being investigated and activated.
Hugo Hopping is an American artist who often works with video, photography, drawing and other mediums as part of his conceptual art practice. In addition to his artistic activity, he is involved in writing about art, architecture, and cultural history. He is also the co-founder and director of THE WINTER OFFICE (est. 2010), which is a work-group exploring experimental art and architecture projects. He lives and works in Copenhagen.