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Guerrillla land-art, farmer-style
By spotogspindel | June 22, 2016
Today we´ve made some seriously large art! Outdoor, we made a hay-piles, in the traditional, Norwegian style called “hesje”. Between fence-rods you suspend rows of wire, and on each wire you hang fresh grass to dry. I´ve been thinking of this for a couple of years now, and this year everything came into place.
On the west-coast this was used a lot, since there is a lot of wind and rain. The top layer of grass acts as a shield that leads the rain down on the sides, but not so much inside to the rest of the grass. Step one is to cut the grass. Then, mount the fence-rods, or better yet, poles made from young trees into the soil. Third, suspend five rows of wire between each pole, from one end to the other. Then the “hesje” is ready for the grass.
When I was young, the whole family would gather for the haymaking days, and as kids we took part of the work, even though I think we mostly ran around, disturbing the grown-ups. It´s a dear memory, none-the-less, and today, with 10-11 people working together, I was almost reliving part of my childhood. This is the traditional haymaking way, but very few farmers still use this labour-intensive method. Now it seems much easier to just make hay-balls with a machine.
However, I did expand on my childhood-memories! Then, I was just raking the grass, today I got to drive a tractor! Oh, what fun! And what a work-out! Who needs to go the gym, when you can heave hay?!
The best part is still the mid-break. Going into the mid-point of the labyrinth, with homemade juice, jam and pancakes, we had a peaceful pause, with the sounds and scents of nature all around us. Delight! This is too good not to share! On Saturday or Sunday (depending on the weather) we´ll arrange a picnic for the public on the field & in the labyrinth. Eating, drinking, playing, running… This is what good childhoods are made of, if you ask me!
The square labyrinth. Progress, step-by-step:
It ended up so big, I can´t even squeeze it into a photo! It´s about 150 meter all together (almost 500 feet).
Thank you, Birgitta and Terje, for being open-minded and art-friendly farmers! Thank for the instructions and all the help to make this dream come true!
Topics: Art, sustainable | 1 Comment »
June 23rd, 2016 at 20:16
this is so cool!!! i haven’t seen anything like this before. very interesting.