Astrid Krogh, who created the site-specific fiber optic installation Light Mail for 21c Cincinnati, shares her thoughts on isolation, nature, and her recent projects highlighting the intersection of art and healing.
The artist and her family recently moved to a farm an hour outside of Copenhagen, where they are currently self-isolating, though she continues to maintain her light–filled studio space in the city. Currently, she is immersed in researching visual patterns in the universe, working remotely with an astrophysicist based at Harvard University. “The question I am asking with this project,” she says, “is can you tell what is a pattern in the universe using a universal pattern?” The complexity and scale of this subject are both inspiring and comforting to her at the moment: “the universe, the galaxies, are infinitely bigger than our own world, and this is a good thing to remember at this moment. I think a lot of things are going to change, including how we treat the environment, our relationship to nature.”
Just a few weeks ago, Astrid was asked by Denmark’s largest hospital to create a space for terminal COVID–19 patients to say goodbye to their families. Her vision came together very quickly: sky-blue curtains, a cloud sculpture for the ceiling, and plant life growing up from the corners and walls. “Even in the saddest of circumstances, it is good to have a reminder of nature, of the cycle of life,” she explained. The commission came as a bit of a surprise, she said: “A lot of people had been talking about the role of art in time like this, and at first the government was reluctant to support any art projects. But then many people came out and said art is more important now than ever. So, it felt really nice to be able to do this.”
This isn’t Astrid’s first time working in a hospital: in the fall of 2019, she spent a month in Kentucky, installing Goldenrod on the exterior of the Albert B. Chandler Hospital in Lexington. The monumental floral sculpture is made of gold leaf, applied directly to the brick surface of the building. “It is interesting that gold has always been used as a material to imitate the sun,” she says. Moreover, “the Latin word for ‘goldenrod’ actually means to heal.”
Hear more from the artist about this remarkable project here. pw: goldenrod
