Trä(d)Akademi *
* TreeAcademy
Each generation is expected to protect our knowledge by living it, and to pass it on to the next generation. This Cycle of Teaching has become very important for Karl as an artist.
In 2000 he started projects for children and pupils with focus on art and ecology, celebrating art with meaning and message.
These two catalogues are valid for Sweden only:
Children
EDUCATION
Black Box to the North Pole
Norway, 2008
One of his first projects was building a black box in Norway together with children with special needs and filling it with meaning of life. This artefact travelled with Beringia, the Swedish Polar Expedition, to the North Pole where it became an installation on melting ice.
Other projects like Drops of The Blue , Eggs - Symbols of Life , Utopia and Our Milky Way were following. Some of such creative eggs which had been sent by helping big ships over the Atlantic, were found in New York with a message inside written by Swedish children.
Drops of The Blue
Lysekil, Sweden, 2014
Drops of The Blue was an art project for children reflecting the water situation on Earth.
Inspired by the beautiful form of a drop they created many small and consisting of them a big drop turning arount from place to place with only one message, along the Swedish west coast from the Botanical Garden in Gothenburg to Havets Hus in Lysekil.
Botanical Gardens, Gothenburg, 2013
Boats of Desire
Mölndal, Sweden, 2010
Boats of desire is an art project for children longing for the big world, adventures, being Robinson or hunting for a treasure in the Carribean, fighting pirates or discovering unknown paradise islands.
On a deeper level it is inspired by the form and message of a boat, a vessel as one of the strongest metafors for humans life on Earth.
Exhibition at Lokstallet , Strömstad, Sweden 2007.
One of these projects finished for the children with sailing out to the Skagerrak on a historical sailer and setting out their boats.
Some of them came over the whole way to Norway.
The world had become a little bit smaller for the children and the sea more familiar.
Eggs - Symbols of Life
Gothenburg, Sweden, 2007
This art project for children was reflecting the simple form of eggs and a result of the installation EarthStation consisting of charred oak eggs on a cliff in Lysekil, others hidden in earth and a bigger one floating on sea.
The eggs of the children were following with big shipps over the Atlantic for "going over bord" there. Some of them were found in New Yorck by some ladies calling back to the pupils supported by messages inside the art works.
The Big Sphere
Sweden, 2007
The Big Sphere was Karls first art project with children in Sweden realized on the island Orust at the West Coast.
A beautiful oak which had been cut down after 400 years of seeing sunrize over the fjord every morning inspired childrens fantasy for sculpting a sphere of the trunk, moving it down to the fjord and by boat to the school where it became charred and installed.
A wooden black ball which every moment can jump away...
Snow
Gothenburg, Sweden, 2014
Winter in Gothenburg
Sculpture
Pontresina, Switzerland, 2015
As the captain of The Arctic Team , Karl is snow sculpting together with children.
Passion and Fantasy as a beautiful game of exchange, giving and taking between different generations of artists.
Enchanting
Sweden and Australia
Enchanting with Nature has become one of Karls most popular art projects for children in school and kindergarden, not only in Sweden but also in Australia.
By art we learn to see and feel Nature including our own.
Utopia
Gothenburg, Sweden, 2010
Utopia and Atlantis are two art projects for children with focus on their dreams and feelings for the future expressed by their fantasy and creativity. Sculptural forms of wood created and installed with passion and strong messages.
Atlantis in the Botanical Garden, Gothenburg, Sweden 2010.
Our Milky Way
Sweden, 2010
Our MilkyWay is an art project for children setting our Blue Planet into a bigger perspective and in the same time directing views back to Earth as the most beautiful space of life we know.
The biggest outdoor installation of Our MilkyWay was realized in the gardens of Astrid Lindgren in Vimmerby, Sweden in 2016.
Students
Learning from the Language of a Landscape, feeling and expressing the Spirit of a site and Healing a place are moments of an art process which Karl is developing together with students.
The surrounding Nature, traces of culture and history are partners within a creative dialogue involving Handcraft traditions and knowledge.
Art Walking
Faroe Islands, 2017
The Gate
Sweden, 2009.
Teaching sculpture, space and green wood as a living material was the focus of an art project with students in Northern Bohuslän at the Swedish west coast inspired by an ancient bridge which was left by only some fragments in the ground. This opened up for traditional tools and methods like conserving the wood by charring. The view through the created gate was unexpected like a framed art work of Nature.
Cairns
Malans, France, 2013
Commissions and other artworks are almost unthinkable for Karl without integrating children at some points of the art process. For IleArt in France he involved children with special needs creating together cairns and learning about balancing stones.
Boats
Rælingen, Norway, 2011.
The old Kungaveien from the Swedish Bohuslän to Norway was the inspiration for two art projects with Norwegian students in Raelingen. The first project was a Ship Setting which became created directly at the old trail. The second very close to that was called Boats using a tree which was cut down in Oslo and changed into two vessels.
Both projects were teaching by creating about different periods in Northern history. At the end of the day the boats almost disappeared when the water came up to an totally unknown level.
Ship setting
Rælingen, Norway, 2010
