Trine Søndergaard Season of Undefined

Through the exhibition’s various motifs, the artist examines and processes themes such as identity, transition, loss, longing and the experience of fighting against forces greater than oneself.

Time plays a central role throughout the exhibition, both prehistoric time, inner mental time, but also the change of seasons. In a series of landscapes, Søndergaard has photographed the view from her bedroom. At the beginning of the year, a stream is dug out outside her window, and the artist follows the landscape at dawn as it develops through the seasons, as well as how nature re-establishes itself in the changed landscape. The repetitive and performative act of photographing the same view again and again becomes a form of calming meditative practice, as well as a testimony to being present with time, the changeability of light and the transformation of the landscape.

During the last ice age, which ended 10,700 years ago, large rocks began to descend with the ice from the mountains of Norway and Sweden to the otherwise flat terrain of Denmark. An ice shield over the Scandinavian highlands, which had developed during the cold climate of the Ice Age, moved towards lower regions and brought with it clay, sand, gravel, pebbles and boulders, which melted free and shaped the Danish landscape. The monumental rocks have attracted the attention of people throughout centuries, and myths and folklore arose in the attempt to explain their presence in the landscape. Søndergaard’s images of the giant rocks hidden in the forests reproduce a physical presence so enormous that they cannot possibly be moved. Søndergaard utilizes the rocks as metaphors for both nature’s and humanity’s challenges, which occasionally require that one must tread new paths.

In other works, the artist has collected soil from various geographical locations that have a personal meaning for her and mixed it with water. Through these works, Trine Søndergaard examines the connection to places and origin. Here, as well as in other previous series such as Strude, Arkiv, Borgherre and Nearer the Time, the artist works with a fundamental interest in origin and inner mental space. She observes how the water first seems muddy and troubled. As time passes, it is allowed to calm down. As the soil settles, the water regains its clarity, but has taken color from the encounter and is forever transformed.

The exhibition weaves together works that seek to create meaning in an unpredictable world. The images revolve around the changeability of life and our ability to navigate it. Large stones, anxious nervous systems, views, morning light and the longing for balance flow through the exhibition’s works, which mix with each other in Season of Undefined.

Trine Søndergaard (b. 1972) lives and works in Copenhagen. Søndergaard is well-known for her work with time and historical textiles. Søndergaard is the recipient of the New Carlsberg Foundation’s artist grant, the Danish Art Foundation’s 3-year work grant as well as the Albert Renger Patzsch Award for her work. Søndergaard is represented in numerous international museum collections, including J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA; LACMA, Los Angeles, USA; Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA; MUSAC, Spanien; Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden; National Museum, Norway; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, France; MuMa – Le Havre, France, as well as AROS and The National Collection of Photography, Denmark.