Connection

Spotlight
from Idea to Artwork

Bart, you are presenting your installation Connection at KLANGLICHT IM PARK. Can you tell us what the work is about?
In Connection, I connect the branches of a tree to the ground from which it grows. This creates a very strict rhythm of vertical lines. What interests me is the interplay between geometry and nature: on the one hand, there are the clear, straight lines; on the other, the organic form of the tree.
These lines can be understood as flows of energy or even as water moving through the tree. At the same time, the work is called Connection because visitors can also form connections – with the installation, with the tree and, ultimately, with themselves.
For Vienna, I want to place one central tree at the heart of the installation and connect it with the surrounding trees. This will create an intimate space that people can enter, walk through and experience directly.

So visitors are meant to move actively through the installation?
Yes, absolutely. It is important to me that people do not simply stand in front of it, but actually enter it, move through it and truly experience the space.

In photographs of your previous works, they appear both very lively and very meditative.
That is true. Of course, it also depends on how many people are there at the same time. Last year in Leeds, there were moments when hundreds of visitors were inside the installation at once – naturally, that creates a completely different dynamic.
But there will also be moments when only a few people, or perhaps even just one person, are moving through it. Then the work develops a very calm, almost meditative atmosphere.

Is that exactly the feeling you want your art to evoke?
Above all, I want to create a sense of wonder. I want people to be surprised by what they see.
What interests me most is that they perceive trees differently afterwards – more intensely and more consciously than before.
I used to work in very different fields, including political advocacy. Today, however, I do not want to be an activist. I would much rather convey a feeling: that we are part of nature. If someone encounters another tree after experiencing my work and suddenly sees it differently, then I have achieved what I set out to do.

You probably never look at the tree in quite the same way again after seeing your installation.
I actually hear that quite often. People tell me they walked past a particular tree every day for years without really noticing it. Only through the installation do they begin to truly see it.
Feedback like that makes me very happy. That is exactly what matters to me: creating a connection with nature. If the work helps people become more sensitive to their environment, then that is the most beautiful thing it can achieve.

KLANGLICHT IM PARK engages closely with the history of the Baroque garden and its sightlines. How did you respond to this curatorial theme?
When I began looking into the Schwarzenberg Garden, I first had to research what actually characterises a Baroque garden. I was particularly fascinated by its clearly defined sightlines.
I want to incorporate this idea into the installation as well. So far, I have mainly spoken about the vertical lines, but I will also create diagonal connections. At least one of these axes should run very clearly through the installation.
Exactly what it will look like, however, is something I can only decide on site. I do make a plan, but my works always emerge in direct dialogue with the location. I begin building, walk through the space, change things again, remove elements and add new ones. It often takes several days before everything feels right.

So the installation only really comes into being through this direct interaction with the site?
Exactly. The sightlines will be an important element. At the same time, I am also interested in the opposite: the irregular, hidden areas of a garden.
It is precisely this contrast between the strict lines and axes on the one hand and the free, organic form of the tree on the other that makes the site so exciting to me.
I do not see the fact that the Schwarzenberg Garden no longer has the perfectly symmetrical form of a Baroque garden as a loss, but rather as an enrichment. It feels more natural as a result – and that is exactly why the trees themselves move even more strongly into the centre of my work.

Biography

Bart Ensing (1960) is a Dutch sculptor and installation artist. In his site-specific works, he brings together nature, light and space to create poetic environments that invite viewers to see landscapes and trees with renewed attention. His practice is characterised by delicate line installations that combine organic forms with geometric order and encourage visitors to experience nature more consciously. His works have been presented at numerous light-art and land-art festivals across Europe and the United States.