EnquireIntroduction
Work from a group exhibition ”The Bambi Project“ .
”Why are we safe here?“ he asked. ”Because all the bushes shield us,“ his mother answered, ”and the twigs snap on the shrubs and the dry twigs crackle and give us warning. And last year’s dead leaves lie on the ground and rustle to warn us, and the jays and the magpies keep watch so we can tell from a distance if anybody is coming.“ (Salten, p. 33–34)
Reading Salten’s Bambi, Laura Põld was especially moved by the parts describing the life cycle and purpose of the forest leaves. As they fall from the trees, leaves become a soft carpet that embraces the forest animals and warns them with their rustle of any approaching danger. Salten’s leaves stand for the inevitability of death and birth that intercon-nects all the creatures in the story.
Põld has created a series of rugs with abstract shapes resembling both animal skins as well as dried leaves. The patterns of the carpets are layered and striped, turning and returning to the same place, recalling the layers of matter accumulating on the surface of the earth, a sign of the passing of time and the recurrence of the seasons. Like leaves fallen from a tree, elements from this installation are scattered here and there in the gallery, meeting other artists’ works. Some of the rugs are attached to a plywood board and thus become a supporting or covering element in their own right. Some of the small rugs, however, are soft and flexible, allowing visitors to sit on them and move them around the space.
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