Gabriela Albergaría – D28 (2015)

Exterior sculpture of the Kunstverein SpringhornhofGabriela Albergaria, with a careful installation in the landscape, makes the traces of the reforestation of the Lüneburg Heath, carried out with a great deal of mechanical effort.

The title of the sculpture, “D28” corresponds to the position of Lüneburger Heide in the list of natural space units published by the Federal Nature Conservation Agency.

Even at the beginning of the twentieth century there were treeless heaths, a result of the centuries-long overgrazing of the barren sandy soil. It was only through the course of industrialization that the technical possibilities of breaking up the so-called “local stone”, a water-impermeable soil layer, with gigantic steam plows, allowed life to thrive on the barren ground.

The evenly running ground waves through which the installation extends are the still visible furrows of these steam plows. On the opposite side of the small hiking trail, the ground profile is much more irregular. Here the strong wind erosion had formed sand dunes, which in many places in the Lüneburger Heide threatened the existence of whole villages.

The red brick for which the artist has chosen is a typical building material of this region for buildings as well as for walkways.

Gardens and landscapes as culturally created, hierarchical, bred and planned structures is the interest of their artistic practice. Gabriela Albergaría directs our attention to the ambivalence of natural and artificial, to what has become artificial in nature, or what has developed through the rule of man over nature.

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The outdoor installation D28 was created as part of a series of art projects of the European Landscape Art Network (ELAN), which were attended by artists in the Springhornhof, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (GB), the Center of Polish Sculpture in Oronsko (PL) and Arte Sella in Trentino (I ) Relate to ecological conditions, landscape design, vegetation and growth processes of the respective place.

Gabriela Albergaria (born 1966 in Vale de Cambra, Portugal) studied art at the University of Porto and was an artist-in-residence at the artist’s house Bethanien, Cité International des Arts Paris and the Oxford Botanical Garden University. Since 1990, she has participated in numerous group and individual exhibitions. Her projects and installations were, among others, Sao Paulo (Brazil), the Villa Arson in Nice, the Kunsthalle Emden, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Biennale Montevideo.