Moving mountain

A K Dolven’s simple working methodologies evoke highly complex responses about the viewers’ relationship to nature and culture.

moving mountain disrupts the conventional Norwegian ideal of nature as a grand, quiet and serene space. Her video recording of the mountain landscape on the island of Røst in Lofoten is the opposite. Nature is loud, eerie and claustrophobic. To further disrupt the conventional depiction, the video is projected high above eye-line, on the back wall of a box enclosure. The inclined floor of the box alludes to a steep hillside. The high gloss, white enamel finish on the interior walls and ceiling extend this sense of dislocation and weightlessness. In the bottom corners of the video two female figures look up at a jagged mountain cleft enveloped in mist. One is blonde, the other brunette, and their gaze slowly shifts from the scar in the mountain across the valley, toward each other. But they never acknowledge each other nor the camera. Filmed from behind, their identities remain hidden. Above their heads thousands of agitated sea birds fly in and out of the mountain mist. Their rapid movement, to and from their nests in the rock face, contrasts the slowly turning female heads. The high frequency and volume of bird calls add an almost Hitchcock-like sense of drama to the visual. The mood is an intense sense of expectation that something else will happen in this claustrophobic, eerie scene. Dolven’s installation, like nature, maintains its suspense, suggesting only the possibility of change.