COR/R/E/LATION

COR/R/E/LATION, a work comprising illuminated arches and translucent Corian panels, is installed along the sides of the storehouse of the Ice Warehouse, a listed building located in close proximity to the Mid Sweden University’s new main entrance.

For the artistic intervention, artist Catrin Andersson has produced a 10-metre site-specific drawing. Charcoal on paper together with ice and water from the Sidsjön Lake create a pattern that has been transferred onto the reverse of the illuminated Corian panels.

The traces and signs of ice and water on the charcoal drawings are lit up when night falls during the dark seasons. The light breaks through the panels’ ice structure like an ice core that has been drilled out of the ground for scientific purposes, creating a dialogue over time and space. The historical connections of the site link the past, the present and the future, and the artistic intervention contributes to and strengthens the site’s identity and becomes a symbol for the Mid Sweden University Åkanten’s new main entrance.

Curator text by Marianne Jonsson

COR/R/E/LATION is an artistic intervention for the Teacher Training Department at the Mid Sweden University, Åkanten in Sundsvall – a photographic development process interwoven with the history of the site.

Materials: Digital print, charcoal drawings, Corian panels, stainless steel and lighting.

“Ice is the main component of the artistic intervention, in which the Corian material and its translucent patterned surface on the long sides of the work symbolise a mass of ice, a core of ice drilled up from the ground, now exposed and ready to be analysed; an archive of time with possible answers to questions related to, among other things, the ongoing climate change.”
Catrin Andersson

Artist Catrin Andersson describes her work as a process that involves the history of the site, in which the Ice Warehouse/the wall constitute the solid foundation of a mass of ice in constant transformation. The work is an integrated part of the existing Ice Warehouse, a listed building from the old brewery epoch (related to the activities of the Grönborg Brewery at the end of the 19th century), installed in close proximity to the Mid Sweden University Åkanten’s new main entrance.

Of great cultural historical value, the site is today a trace – a memory – of the city structure at the end of the 19th century, an important period in the development of Sundsvall. During this time, ice blocks were collected from the nearby Lake of Sidsjön, early in the spring when the lake was covered by ice. The blocks were transported to and stored in the Ice Warehouse.

Ice is a recurring metaphor in the artist’s works, which often include water in some form – physical, mental, evanescent, solid or fluid.

Catrin Andersson has created charcoal drawings that were printed on the reverse of illuminated Corian panels whose patterns were created by the ice from the Sidsjön Lake and stored in the Ice Warehouse until it melted. The patterns were transferred to panels, which were installed on the façades.

In her artistic interventions, the artist includes ongoing work processes and material investigations that are interwoven with the history and structure of the site. She explains: “In my drawings, charcoal on paper reacts with water as in a photographic development process.”

An important part of the work is the underlying illumination of the translucent Corian panels, in which the traces and signs from ice and water on the charcoal drawings are lit when night falls during the dark seasons. The light breaks through the panels’ ice structure like an ice core that has been drilled out of the ground for scientific purposes, creating a dialogue over time and space. The historical connections of the site link the past, the present and the future, and the artistic intervention contributes to and strengthens the site’s identity and becomes a symbol for the Mid Sweden University Åkanten’s new main entrance.

The historical connections of the site link the past, the present and the future, and the artistic intervention contributes to and strengthens the site’s identity and becomes a symbol for the Mid Sweden University Åkanten’s new main entrance.

On Catrin Andersson

Catrin Andersson (b. 1974) lives and works in Jädraås and Stockholm. She has a degree in Photography and Visual Communication from Edinburgh College of Art and Design. Catrin Andersson has held solo exhibitions in, among others, Stockholm, Lund, Malmö, Svalbard, Norway; Andratx, Mallorca; and Akiyoshidai, Japan. In 2019 she will hold a solo exhibition at Sandviken konsthall and at ELASTIC Gallery in Stockholm.