Fish take root

There is a smell of spices and dust in the old barn on Gilhus farm, and water and fish food. The lights are dimmed and in several colors. They are mounted above the plants and provide light for growth. Some are purple, others are white. We hear bubbling water first, and the roar of the air horse through the air stones that give the fish oxygen. Then the pumps kick in, and lager quantities of water are pumped from the bathtubs with fish up to the vessels at the top of the vertical plant shelves. From there it drips down, from shelf to shelf, until it trickles quietly down and into the bathtub again. The gaze follows the water and finally rests on the large koi fish. They are beautiful and colorful and swim slowly. No sudden movements, just effortless and soft gliding through the water. The koi fish is a symbol of love and friendship. Along with them there are a few water plants and some spots that cast light in the water, and the water pump in blue and black. It is hard to resist the urge to let your fingers slide through the water. It is also difficult not to notice the herbal plants. There are many different types, from the well-known basil and parsley to the more unknown sage and chives.

The gaze then moves on to a large mirror cabinet. It stands beautifully and majestically on its curved legs from the late 1800s. There is a nice fragility about the painted wood carvings on the side doors that hold an aquarium between them. A tube of wild and abundant garden plants sits atop the mirror cabinet. Her, too, you can feel the water being sucked up to the plants and trickling down again, when the plants have finished drinking and cleaning the fish water. Various small fish dabble in the water and wait to be fed.

Another piece of furniture catches the eye: a chest of drawers from the early 1900s painted in deep red and fresh blue, as well as unfathomable brown, black, green, stands at the other end of the barn. Here, literally 8 veiltails greet us. They are in the goldfish family. Its fins and tails fan like a veil or an airy dress. It is hard to take your eyes off these beautiful creatures with their stunning movements. When you look down the chest of drawers, you find a carpet of different microgreens, which are a kind of superfood that is excellent in salads, pesto, and smoothies. It smells strongly of radish, arugula, red basil, buckwheat, and watercress. In the drawer below we find ferns that we can come across in forests and fields. All our plants are grown in water, specifically water with fish excrement, and the ferns are said to have originated approx. 400 million years ago. The whole system is circular. Water is pumped from the aquarium to the plant trays, from one to the other and finally it ends up in the bottom tray and is then returned to the aquarium cleaned through the plants that like to feed on the fish water.

The artists are here, every day the installation is open, to explain and assist. Some of the audience like to walk alone, rest their gaze on the greenery or the movement of the fish. They smell and see, perhaps touch an herb or feel the warmth of the light. Others look around and need help: what do I see here, and the artists offer an explanation, first of the circular growth system, then how the idea of the furniture came about. That the farm is from approx. 1860 and that they wanted to return some furniture to the farm from the time the farm was built. The discussion goes on loudly, people point and listen and ask questions and usually come up with their own thoughts. Here is someone who knows a lot about fish. Incredibly much. He has just sold his aquariums and he miss, looking after the fish. His wife nods eagerly and asks him to give the artists her phone number – because maybe he can be brought into this project.

A young boy of 7 does not leave until he has understood the whole mechanism. We must show him the pumps and transitions and timers in the socket which regulate how often the pumps run. The mother is a bit impatient but must wait until the big pumps start running again. Yes: here it goes from one vessel to the next and another and yes: it trickles down to the fish. The boy nods in conviction and finally lets himself be torn free. Then comes a friend, unprepared what she is about to see: she runs in, stops, listens, looks, and she is moved to tears. Overwhelmed by life and plants; by sounds and the smell. Time passes slowly here. It grabs you. “Give me a rake and some sand and I’ll stay here all day”, an excited visitor proclaims.

Another is interested in ecology and is himself educated at the Norwegian University of Life Science. He likes the circularity and that no artificial fertilizer is used. He also puts himself on our visitor list. Then a former cultural attaché from Austria arrives. He exclaims that this Is related to “Das grüne Museum”. He begins to draw lines to other artists who have been working with ecology. Yes, there are so many that we are talking about a completely new genre in art, namely ecological. An art that relates to Anthropocene, which Henrik H. Svensen described in Vagant in 2014 as “Anthropocene is like the first heavy snowfall in November. The surprise is great and the paralysis complete” … “Anthropocene has been proposed as a new epoch designation, which will divide the Quaternary period in three, to mark that mankind has become the dominant force on earth. Mankind has changed the composition of the atmosphere and the geochemical cycle of phosphorus and nitrogen and has modified more than half of the land. We move more soil and rock every year than all the world’s rivers and glaciers and have exterminated a number of species.”

Through interdisciplinary collaboration and trial and error, ecological art wants to focus on both nature and society. We need art and utopias as motivation to continue looking for good solutions so that humanity’s turbulent, but also beautiful history can give life to future generations.