Keep (2024)

Keep is a spiral walkway made of coppiced hazel poles to create a fence, rising from below the eyeline at the entrance, to a height of 2m60 at the centre. On entering the piece, there is a clear view over, but one is gradually cut off from the outside world as one enters deeper. At the centre there is a bench to sit on. Sound and sky become more prominent. The work is situated in the garden of Københavns Højskoleforening, in Vanløse, in the west of Copenhagen. This organisation was founded with the goal of furthering the educational principles of N.F.S.Grundtvig, who started the Danish Højskole movement in the mid 1800s, with the aim of offering education to agricultural labourers. The garden at Københavns Højskoleforening is the largest private garden in Copenhagen and it is being actively managed to promote biodiversity.

The experience of making House of Cards, nearly a decade ago, taught me to think about the onward life of an installation beyond the exhibition period. Like most people I am much more concerned now about considering the environmental impact of my work, and the materials I want to use are part of that. Hazel has a low carbon footprint, being a fast-growing bush/tree, and requiring minimal energy consumption in its processing, and the poles can be reused after the installation is dismantled for fencing or support in gardens. In using the coppicing technique, I tread in the footprints of my forebears who would have used hazel for fencing in agricultural production. This sensitive use of natural resources is something with which I identify.

The name ‘Keep’ is a reference to the innermost sanctum of medieval motte and bailey castles, but the word also features in the expression ‘to keep things to oneself.’ My work often revolves around ideas of secrecy, shame, and the division between our public and private selves. More recently there has been the experience of seclusion from the outside world brought upon us by the Covid-19 pandemic. I have also been thinking of fences and land in a broader sense; of inclusion and exclusion, against a political climate of growing insular nationalism.