"Glacial Arch" Kärradal, Sweden 2002

"Glacial Arch" Installation View

Artist: Christopher Casanova

Karradal, Sweden 2002

It is true that I love Sweden. This installation was built in a bay just out side of the town of Karradal in the Kattegat sea area.  The water was waist deep and the sculpture was built about 100 meters out in the bay.  It took two days of concentrated effort to hand carry the rocks from land to the site, an existing protruding rock formation.  The arch took many attempts but only one afternoon to complete once I had all of the elements in place.  That morning, I had gone into the forest and cut y-shaped branches from fallen trees.  The branches were used  as crutches for the individual stones, which were roughly the size of large watermelons.  Once the keystone was in place, I carefully removed the braces and the arch was complete.  

A lot of people waded out to take a closer look and though I expected someone to eventually push it over, the sculpture remained in tact for the remainder of my stay in Karradal.  I have no idea how long it stood, but I like to imagine that it is still part of that beautiful horizon.  I photographed this work with a Makina 6/7 medium format camera and the sculpture remains now in small editions of prints made from those negatives. 

I was very pleased with this piece of work, but what sticks in my mind are the memories of the fresh berries that I picked every morning for breakfast and the chill of the water.  Karradal is in south western Sweden, maybe 100 km south of Goteborg.  The stones were found in fields and are the debris of glaciers moving across the land many many centuries ago.