End of Dreams

The latest work (in progress) of the Danish artist Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen will be displayed at SALT Galata, Istanbul, in February and March.

Concerned with issues of migration, Larsen’s most recent project End of Dreams – produced during a residency at the Italian art organisation, qwatz – is an ode to those attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea in order to reach Europe, and the countless lives subsequently lost.

Larsen originally built his sculptural installation by submerging 48 concrete-canvas sculptures off the coast of Pizzo Calabro in Calabria, South Italy.

During the making of the work an unanticipated violent storm ravaged the raft that was holding the structures in place and their remnants were scattered across the seabed and onto nearby beaches. Some disappeared altogether. Larsen believed that the intervention of nature brought the process of the work’s production even closer to the feelings of trauma and peril he was trying to express, adding to the narrative of the piece, and so following the storm he hired divers to film the scene and collect all the debris and sculptures that could be found. Working with this material, Larsen created a new work that is a multi-media installation comprising a five channel HD video shot under sea, and a composition of some of the remains of the sculptural elements.

SALT Galata, Istanbul – February 6 – March 29, 2015