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‘Fire Kanter’ (’Four Edges/Sides’) is the title of a year-long self-funded art project I will be working on throughout 2021. Now that the KYST project and all its various outcomes (book, exhibition, etc) have been delivered and digested, I feel I am ready and willing to embark on another structured and time-based project.

I wanted to build on some of the themes of the KYST project, but also do something completely different. I love the structure of a year-long project and the rhythm and depth that such an undertaking entails, but I also want to change the format and build on some of the anamorphic and land art sculptures and installations I’ve been working on over many years.

‘Fire Kanter’ is a series of anamorphic squares – site-specific interventions – created and photographed in the Bornholmian landscape. I will walk around in the landscape, in the forest, on a field, by the beach. I will choose a point in space and from that point, I will create the illusion of a square within the landscape by moving, replacing and altering things I find and collect in the landscape. I will be engaging with the environment in an explorative and tactile way and getting my hands dirty.

The anamorphic nature of the project means that the area I will be engaging with is by no means square but will only appear so from the specific point from where I record the image. The challenge will be to create this illusion using organic materials within a dynamic space. Wind, air temperature and gradient will dictate the nature of the artwork, as will the plastic nature of the resources that I will be working with. I have hundreds of ideas as I write this (mid-January) but time will tell which of these will be successfully realised.

I will be creating a minimum of one ‘firkant’ a month throughout 2021. Probably and hopefully I will be creating many more. Whilst I am not specifying when and where the firkanter will be made, my aim is to create interventions that reflect the turning of the wheel of time as well as the geographical and natural diversity of Bornholm. I will be looking at creating these artworks in a variety of different locations on Bornholm, some well-known, others much less so. Some may only last for hours or days, others a bit longer, but all will eventually be reclaimed by time and the landscape.

In order to create these squares, I will try to use as few tools as possible – just my camera and tripod if possible. I will document the creation of the firkant, its completed form and possibly the process of it dissolving back into the landscape. These images I will share throughout the year on my social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook and my website blog). Time permitting, I will write on my blog about the creation of these works. Possibly I will be making plein air timescape/slicer paintings of the squares. Depending on how all this goes, I will investigate creating a book and/or exhibition about the project in 2022, and I would like to include some of the ideas, sketches and thought processes. But maybe not – this is a self-created and self-funded project, an essentially selfish undertaking that may disappear without trace.

FK 01 – and three days after…

‘Fire Kanter’ is (another) way for me to connect deeply with the Bornholm landscape. By being in the landscape and moving things around, I cannot help but engage with it in a deep and meaningful way. I will be literally getting to grips with my environment. The raw materials of the landscape will be the tools with which I create my art. The artwork will be situated within that which it represents.