the big bubble

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The Big bubble (+ The Bubble buoy) (2009)

From Inflations and expirations, Akershus kunstsenter, 2009.



Link to: Inflations and expirations

These are two of the works from the exhibition Inflations and expirations at Akershus Centre of Art. The show was installed in three rooms; a large, a medium, and a small one. The small one is the type of room that occasionally is left unused as an exhibition space, maybe to be used as a temporary storage instead.

I made a “temporary storage installation” from typical “exhibition leftover material”. The centrepiece was a bubble made out of bubble wrap and transparent package tape. During the peak of the finance crises there seemed to be bubbles everywhere; stock marked bubble, real estate bubble, art marked bubble and so on, - so the “Bubble-bubble” was a comment to the inflated use of bubble-metaphors.

While The Big bubble was located in the last room of the exhibition space, The Bubble Buoy were places next to the entrance/ exit door. A bubble boy, an expression with several meanings; kid without an immunity system, aggressive computer virus, or the last player to exit a poker-tournament without a prize. I added a phonetic twin; The Bubble buoy, a paradoxical, dysfunctional object.

A rescue buoy is usually a reassuring object, but I see this one is more like a symbol of promises that cannot be fulfilled, a false reassurance of safety that may cause more damage by existing than if it didn´t.