Detroit Stockholm presents invited artists Hillside Projects and member Henrik Green.
In his works for the fair Henrik Green faces the climate crisis and attempts to cope with the reality of profound
change. The crisis merges fragility and geology into a prism of disorientation, the time scales of moments, seasons
and geological epochs coincide in the abrupt changes we make to our planet. Through this prism Henrik looks at soil,
rock and flowers in objects and paintings. Well known connotations such as steady, solid rock and the ephemeral
beauty of flowers are employed to grasp what is at stake.
Soil is the interface between rock and most living organisms, where we grow our food and where we bury our dead.
This proximity of life and death both literally and symbolically is given material form in soil, rock, copper embroidery
and paper. Paintings evoking images of petals, aerial photos of mountain ranges and minerals seen through a
microscope reinforce the different forms the soil spawns. Austere and blooming.
During the last few years, notions surrounding extinction have been at the core of HIllside Project’s (Emily Berry
Mennerdahl & Jonas Böttern) practice. Extinction stories are often told through tragedy, regret and a sense of
nostalgia. Through methods of storytelling, video works, text and drawing, Hillside Projects explore the tragedies but
are also interested in finding alternative ways to talk about extinction, to embrace the comedic and slightly absurd. To
understand the cultural assumptions that lie behind what is of value in nature and what is not, and how this forms us.
To question the stories we tell and how.
At Supermarket, Hillside Projects will shift their perspective away from the decline of charismatic megafauna and the
tragedies, and begin to explore the extinctions we do not mourn. Disease-bearing mosquitoes, infectious childhood
diseases, the seemingly meaningless and the dull-looking. Hillside Projects are currently, in collaboration with
Böttern’s mother, creating a trial children’s clothing collection with blown up prints of the extinctions we do not mourn.
The choice of creating a children’s collection is a commentary to how the narratives we teach our children about the
natural world and more than humans are so easily romanticized, exploited and commercialized through products
such as toys, clothing, films, literature etc.
Who should be saved and why? Who decides who should be saved?