About the Work

PETROGLYPHS is a process work which I started a few years ago when I participated in the Baltic Art project on Bornholm, Denmark. I took my starting point in Bornholm rock carvings, also called Petroglyphs. According to historians, petroglyphs are direct delineations of star constellations in the sky. Each cluster of carvings is as such reflecting a specific astrological constellation of the sky. 

Instead of using the actual formations of individual groupings of petroglyphs, which are often painted red, instead, I took as my point of departure a map of the city of Vang and its inhabitants, which I clustered into an imaginary and para-disical constellation relating each inhabitant and their families to the stars in the sky. 

To portray this connection, I connected a one-meter-long wooden pen or drawing compass, which I hung from the ceiling with 1001 red threads, pointing it onto the city map. 

I have long used thread, and especially red thread, in my work. 

However, in this sketch, the choice of red is often associated with passion, energy, and intensity, which might reflect a desire to convey the profound connection between the people of Vang and the celestial bodies. Additionally, red threads evoke ideas of destiny or fate, emphasizing the interconnectedness of individuals with the constellations and the universe.

The installation was a way of mirroring the connection between the near and the distant, the present and history, man and the universe.  In doing so, I tried to concretize two contradictions that exist only because of one another.

© Camilla Howalt