On June 4 we opened the time capsule inside the sculpture SOLEKKO at Norsk Teknisk Museum in Oslo. It was 19 years ago that Solekko was built and installed at the museum.
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| Photo credit Mimsy Moller |
Removing the stainless steel cone protecting the capsule inside.
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| Photo credit Mimsy Moller |
In June of 1996, during a residency at the museum, I worked with ten and eleven year old children to make art work at the museum. We filled the capsule with their artwork and that of children from Quebec, CA and from Vermont and Hawaii, USA.
Around fifty of these "children" were present and eagerly scrambled to find their artwork on the table.
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| Photo credit Mimsy Moller |
One young woman showed me a drawing of a small animal hidden in tall grass. "He was my friend but he killed himself when he was seventeen".
Other stories are happy ones. "This one was done by the son of the mayor of Oslo; he now loves with his heiress wife in Bergen."
And the granddaughter of famous Norwegian playwright and illustrator Egner Thornbjorn had drawn a picture of happy animals and birds living in nature very similar to her grandfather's illustrations.
Included with the drawings were clay artifacts. Some were made at the museum workshops and others at Milton and Essex, Vermont schools.
The small clay pieces and drawings are part of an exhibit at the museum now and will be safely included in their archives later on.
Norwegian Sculpture Projects
As the World Sculpture Project connects people and cultures with five sculptures around the world, the following projects commemorate and connect people in other unique ways.
Photo journalist Mimsy Moller takes a picture of Nico Widerberg's sculpture commemorating the terrorist attack in Oslo in 2011.
Children had come from all over Norway to attend a summer camp on the island where the attack occurred.
Widerberg is installing an exact replica of the sculpture in each of the regions around Norway from which children came who were killed.
If the regions have approved having a sculpture, over fifty pieces could be installed throughout Norway.
German artist commentates Jews who were deported to Auschwitz from Norway during World War II.
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| To the left is the director of the Holocaust Center in Oslo, Gunter Demning and the two owners of the Starbucks cafe. There were no survivors of the Jewish people who lived inside the building. |
Japan
Next, I will be in Sendai, Japan.The sponsor of HIMEGURI sculpture, Mitsubishi Estate Company, will host the opening of the time capsule buried in the ground near the sculpture.
My granddaughter Angela Robins will be with me beginning June 9 for four days translating Japanese during meetings and generally helping me as I adjust to the new time zone. How very fortunate I will be to have her with me!
