Svava Juliusson @ Supercrawl 2012

Svava Thordis Juliusson @ Supercrawl 2012; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

In a previous post about Svava Thordis Juliusson's exhibit at b contemporary, I mentioned that she was cooking up a grand installation for Supercrawl 2012. The above image of Avalanche/Corral is misleading: it looks like a knitting project still on the needles and mounted on a chequered wall. 

Svava Thordis Juliusson @ Supercrawl 2012; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Nope. The "yarn" is braided nylon rope, the "stitches" are held together with plastic cable ties, and the "needles" are a metal rod acting as a hanging device. It's an impressive piece. To give you some context, the building is huge. I'm curious to know what the dimensions of Avalanche/Corral are, how much rope she used, and the weight of the piece. Looking at the people, I'd guess that the piece is about 12 feet high by about 24 feet wide. Update: Svava informed me that her piece is 40 feet wide by 30 feet high and that she used 2500 feet of 3/4" braided nylon rope and about 3000 cable ties. I love those sort of details!

Svava Thordis Juliusson @ Supercrawl 2012; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Her statement for Avalanche/Corral reads as follows: "Lines that entwine a topographical map with weather systems are drawn by industrial ropes and cable ties that speak to the ubiquity of plastic in our natural and domestic environments. The bright orange of the safety ropes alert the viewer to the unpredictability of this landscape, one prone to avalanches and other disasters."