Denmark and Danish Greenspace: Tickon

TICKON

Yesterday we visited Tickon, where some of the top professional nature artists have installations. These installations are one of a kind because they are singular to their space, meaning they cannot be moved or the design loses a strong connection to the landscape and much of its beauty as a piece. The creator of the park and artist with a sculpture within it, Alfio Bonanno, showed us around. The question of the day is as follows:

Describe your experience and interpretation of TICKON in the light of visiting it with its creator.

Tickon was a very beautiful place, and I have never experienced anything like it before. Not only is the art one of a kind, it lives and breathes similarly to how we do as humans. It is part of the world and follows nature’s path for it. Tickon was even better with Alfio Bonanno, the creator the park, guiding us through it.

Alfio assisted each of the artists in the creation of their installation, which meant that he knew each of their design intents. So often in the world of architecture and art the intent is described by the curator or by someone unrelated the piece. Alfio described each piece and the focus the designer had for the construction of it. To this day, very few people have ever offered that opportunity to me, and for the rest of my life he may be one of the few that does.

Some of the sculptures he described were designed by the likes of Herman Prigann, Chris Booth, Jussi Heikkila, Hansen Mekael, Steven Siegel, Jan Ronnau, and Karen McCoy. Although I do not remember the names of each figure, I do recall some of the styles. Herman Prigann focused primarily on averting the viewer’s eyes to the entangled and spiraling tree above by lower the person into a rock pit. In previous design projects I have worked with this same theory, but by creating something similar for people to view a horizon line. Seeing this in person gave me an honest perspective that the feat of averting someone’s eyes is a definite possibility, as I would have looked up at the sky even if I had not been informed of his focus due to the closed, inset rock structure.

Chris Booth, who often works with stone similarly to Herman Prigann, created a spire in which to honor a grouping of massive trees. This he did with stacks of wood which he compressed with a large boulder. Due to gravity and friction, the tower stands at three meters easily and has a protruding pole of wood. The other tower, which was vertical sticks, has toppled since the creation, but the way in which he drilled the hole into the rock is very interesting to see up close, as it now lies on the ground.

Alfio’s own piece also incorporated stones, but in a different phenomenal way. Alfio described his intent to highlight two massive groupings of tree on the left and right of his “cornucopia” of timbers. This was one of my personal favorite sculptures, as it obviously took Alfio a long time to decide the design and location for it, due to his constant involvement in the parks. The steel structure was very precise, and the tightly strung together timbers gave a striking shadow quality to the in filled rocks.

The last piece I quite a lot was Mikael Hansen’s path of perspective. This monument to our human perspective of sight built from linear timbers varying in size has been rebuilt multiple times. The design is simple, but so gorgeous in the dedicated focus to one concept. So often it is hard in any design profession to create something simple and beautiful, but Mikael Hansen did an excellent job reminding me of the possibility of achieving the simple yet elegant goal.

I am saddened by the fact that we were not able to see Alfio’s personal studio, as I am incredibly intrigued by process work of artists and architects. This opportunity to see direct process work is an extraordinary chance, and hopefully I will be able to return by some method of transportation to experience this. Tickon was absolutely wonderful all the same though, and I am incredibly appreciative of Alfio Bonanno for spending the time to show us around and explain things.