snow drawings
irudia
When did you start to be interested in snow as material for your work?

I never intentionally chose snow as my material, it sort of chose me. It just somehow happened by mere accident. As a matter of fact I didn’t even use to like snow very much, and was quite reluctant in the beginning when I was invited for the artist residency program in Colorado (Anderson Ranch Arts Center) for the first time. My project Snow Drawings resulted from play. One of the first days I was trying out my snowshoes I started walking little patterns on a pristine area of snow, actually on a golf course that was close to the artist residency.

I started doing this more often and at some point took my camera with me. This is when it became interesting. I realized that I received 2 different readings of the imprints that I had left on the snow, depending on the position of the camera/my position in relationship to the sun the drawings appeared as dark lines or very bright lines.

How do you choose the spaces, the places for your works? What kind of research do you do before realizing these huge projects?

I am of course always looking out for suitable locations, always keeping my eyes and ears open for beautiful landscapes that would offer themselves as “canvases” for my Snow Drawings projects. Sometimes people point me to areas that they have visited and that they think would work well.

Sometimes I get invited for projects in regions I hadn’t even thought about -for instance last year I was invited for a snow drawings project in the French Alps. I also use google earth a lot to look at areas before I go there, especially if they are far away and I can’t just quickly go and check them out in advance. Google earth is an indispensible tool for this.

Some of your ephemeral and land art projects need a lot of collaborators... How do you deal with the collective work?

I don’t see my work as “Land Art”. Land Art pieces were usually made to stay. My work, on the other hand, is extremely ephemeral. I think the spontaneity of creating the work -which happens entirely in the creative process, the participatory aspect of it (community collaboration in the creative process) and the ephemerality aspect clearly distinguish this project from Land Art.

This distinction is very important to me. I don’t want my activity in the environment to leave behind any traces. I usually work with one or several organizations -for example an arts
organization or nature organization, who will host the project. I usually choose a very simply pattern system, that can easily be realized with large numbers of participants. It’s very important that we all work with the same pattern -this ensures that the result will become one cohesive piece of art rather than an accumulation of individual drawings.

You also do other kind of artworks.. video, installations, drawings... and we feel that in your work the environmental issue is also, something social and politic...

Yes, a lot of my artwork addresses environmental causes usually not in a very overt way, but rather in a more subtle, contemplative way. I like to inspire my audiences to reflect, think, form their own mind rather than just planting an opinion. The environment is really a major concern to me, as I think we have become too detached from our roots and need to reconnect
with our planet if we want to be able to continue living on it for generations to come. In my opinion environmental causes need to come first; we need to address our environmental problems and regulate our over-consumption of the planets resources first and foremost -even before addressing socialpolitical issues, social injustice etc.

sonja-hinrichsen.com

© argazkiak / photos by: sonja hinrichsen
courtesy: chandra cerrito contemporary, oakland usa