To perceive time is to observe change. Fluctuations lead from one place to another, like creatures slowly crawling on the ocean floor or waves smashing stone against stone, chipping off larger bits and pulverizing them into grains of sand. In time, the whole world is a sculpture; elements move, combine and test its forces; monuments of its own making defragment into small grains and particles, before piling back together into new moulds. Following the ebb and flow of the tides, sand washes ashore, letting the sun dry it out and the wind carry it toward new destinations, before again turning into piles – material and forces collaborate in a choreography of change.

In Invited (6): Grainy showers Coarse base, Johanne Hestvold & Alexandra Hunts have extended their invitation further, inviting Andreas Tegnander to collaborate on interpretations of weather forecasts from the Institute for Climate Change at Bjerknes Centre for Climate Reasearch into sound compositions. Together they explore notions of stability, change, movement and forecasting. Visitors are invited to engage with two sculptures by climbing on top of them, pressing the sand down onto the floor. Throughout the exhibition period the sculptures will move around, allowing trails of sand to bear witness of its positioning in time and space. Does material itself long for stability, or is it humans who long to stabilize materials? By walking on top of the sculptures, gravity will force grains of sand down into funnels, the grains accumulating until reaching a point of saturation and triggering small landslides. Through this act of self-destruction, the sand also preserves its state as a pile, broadening its base and allowing for a more stable foundation, a system that works. Sometimes the line between preserving and changing is a fine one–fragile, like a line drawn in the sand.

Experience through time allows for predictions and premonitions. Patterns of movement become sources of information, guiding our hopes and expectations for a future to come. What can past sirocco winds blowing through the Sahara tell us of floods of the future? The soundscape of Grainy showers Coarse base emanates from a sculptural loudspeaker, its ebb and flow carrying the waves of sound throughout the exhibition’s changing topography. How can we observe change when it comes by way of immaterial or tiny movements, like waves of sound or particles of grain falling on top of each other? Often the forces of small elements go unnoticed until they trigger a larger event, like a wave building up momentum as it smashes stone against stone, or the falling grains that cause a landslide.

Text: Sara Kollstrøm Heilevang