Nordisk Kunst Plattform
Day 2
Photo-call: At 8.30 precisely the photographer arrives. We all have coffee and talk about the work. She snaps away as I sprinkle silver glitter along the edge of the track.
The rest of the morning was spent making sure the electrical components had survived the budget airline journey. It was only when they initially failed to work that I realised that I had no idea how the transformer worked let alone to repair it. Thankfully it was a very simple problem with the track connector.
There are three rooms – it was always my intention for the model train component to be in the old ticket office (the middle room). This room has two windows that over look the platforms. Although the station has been decommissioned the line itself has actually been upgraded and has new higher speed trains with ticket sellers and conductors on board. The train service from Stavanger to Egersund stops, others like the Oslo and 4.00am Express don’t stop.
I took two series of embroidered handkerchiefs for the other rooms; one ‘baby blue’ series and one ‘gold’. It made visual and narrative sense for the blue series to be in the first room and for the gold series to be in the third room. It took considerably longer than I had imagined to work out how to show the handkerchiefs in the final room. An idea that looked great on paper look awful in reality – thankfully Liz was on hand to offer advice and practical assistance. Although the handkerchiefs are basically square they are all slightly different sizes and some have distinct ‘leanings’, this meant that we had to try various handkerchiefs in various positions to maintain the grid format. Each handkerchief has four possible orientations and nine possible positions in the three be three grid – we started trying to work out the total number of options this offered, we gave up and got on with the job in hand!
Another coat of paint, a nice dinner and a glass of wine.
In the evening we discuss the idea of the Brief Encounter edition. Liz had suggested it weeks ago and although I’d had a few ideas we decided it would be nice to produce it on-site. It also solved a potential transport issue. The installation itself packed and folded into my small suitcase (if it hadn’t been for my concern about the transformer unit I could have taken the whole thing as hand luggage).
