RPfmDP and Urbs Animalia

I have just come back from a talk by Lisa Torell at Hordaland Art Centre in Bergen where I became enamored by her series of works that go under the title: "Reserved places for more diffuse purposes".

So what is a reserved place for more diffuse purpose? In Lisa's own words, it is .....

A monument for the future and a space specific installation that deal with thoughts around space, time, control and will.
It constitutes of; on spot founded objects as stones, concrete pipes, boughs and limbs, all fixed to fit with the added sign-posts in aluminium where the weather laminated A3 are placed.

What I so much enjoyed about this series was that, while her narrative texts have been developed for specific sites/places, they also work outside that context. They are, as described in the announcement of the event, pedagogic in approach but with a certain ambiguity, from the site, they spin out into more general themes and discussions - and they are targeted directly towards "you".

Read here!

I talked to Lisa briefly afterward her talk, and she gave me a cd with a recording made for Sveriges Radio in 2003, narrated by Emil Homer. Its called Urbs Animalia - Statens Djur, Statens naturilga invanare. A quick and dirty English translataion: "Urbs Anamalia - the City's Animals, the city's natural immigrants." I can't wait to listen to it! However, there is a dilemma in my translation of the title - "Staden" in Swedish. Does it mean just city, can it mean, Nation, National State, or govenrment too? If so, then the title takes on another meaning. This is, I think, a part of her work - to make mistakes in translation does not matter, or rather it is a good thing if it creates more thought.