JENS HENRICSON / works /cv / contact /
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Reverberation
Twenty photographs (50 x 34 cm) on a bench with glas, 50 x 356 x 324 cm, 2008.
Twenty text stanzas mounted on the wall, glicleé print and glas, variable dimensions, 2008.
 

The installation "Reverberation" is a reconstruction of my childhood microcosm in which references to the child, its games and its way of looking at the world unfold. Where the past solely exists as fragments, insinuations, grand tales and incomplete testimonies. These data, facts, despite being interpreted, contribute to the story.

"Henricson turns backwards and inwards, towards his own childhood. In the installation "Efterklang" (Reverberation), he returns to the playgrounds in the beech forest and along the coast, fully aware of how hard it is to capture the elusive gestalt of himself as a child. However, locations have an ability to preserve a piece of life – finding himself on location, he once again experiences the rattling of the leaves and the light, and the colours become clearer and deeper when he rediscovers the imagination and playfulness of the past."

- Gertrud Sandqvist
 
 
 
Reverberation
Twenty photographs (50 x 34 cm) on a bench with glas, 50 x 356 x 324 cm, 2008.
 
 
 

Reverberation
Twenty text stanzas mounted on the wall, glicleé print and glas, variable dimensions, 2008.
 
 
PHOTOGRAPHS + TEXT:

 
Met on the edge of the yard outside the stable. By the beech tree that turned green before all the others. Under the foliage where a thousand branches embraced the white summer clouds. We had been waiting for the tree to sprout leaves. Waited for the color. The taste.
 
 
 

 
Went past the pruned yews in the shade of the castle. Down to the tennis court which could only be used if the palace children were there. Lost interest. It should have been built for us. Threw a dead branch over the fence and ran.
 
 
 

 
There was a playhouse that also belonged to the castle. Always locked. Drawn to the shutters. Silently, they kept the secret. Circled the house, trying to be soundless. Dried leaves underfoot, a deafening echo through the woods. Tried a rock on the shutters. Nothing.
 
 
 

 
The well where servants used to fetch water. Forgotten and covered in ferns. Leaves landed on the top of the head, forming an orange crown. With the light a certain way it shone like a halo. Only the brave dared to drink from the mouth of Jesus.
 
 
 

 
Followed the ridge to the grave site. Our excavation for any kind of treasure. Dug deeper and deeper until we were told to stop. Our eyes met. Further along we would go on.
 
 
 

 
The hum of engine, rubber, asphalt. We weren’t to cross the road. The dead pheasant as an example. On the other side of the road the woods changed their appearance. Round leaves turned into needles. The underbrush withdrew, the shadows shapeless. Without origin, no bird song.
 
 
 

 
Deep furrows from the rain that took away the sand and small rocks. We followed the trail, skipping, running. When we could see the sea we turned back into the woods. Made our way through bramble bushes. The football pitch which we got to ourselves.
 
 
 

 
Along the water in another direction. Stepped over the grass snake resting in the sun. We looked for the buzzard. Silent, without wing strokes. We walked through brimstone butterflies. Tried to catch a hare. If we looked up we saw what would later remind us of something else.
 
 
 

 
The rock, our meeting point for swimming. Long ago, it had been the pier that blew away. Nothing we thought of any more. Perhaps it was a memory before ours. The water broke on the shiny colors of the rocks, a long way out at sea.
 
 
 

 
Wandering through sand-gravel and puzzled pebbles. A spot of gray concrete with a low entrance and a padlock. Something important we never figured out. Sun–warmed stones, conversations, Denmark. Questions with no explanation. View.
 
 
 

 
Along the beach, before the beeches, the birches lined up. A tree left behind, abandoned, dead on the ground. Stopped for no reason. The sun squeezed through despite the cover of clouds in the sky. The forest standing to silent attention.
 
 
 

 
The stream flowing into the sea like a shiny tongue. We walked in the choppy water. Past the sledding slope, over the rocks. Followed the stream into the ravine. The water that hollowed out the soft sand stone. Carved our names, our history. Arrived, under the stone bridge, where the pond took over. Our shelter from our pursuers. Voices hushed. All clear.
 
 
 

 
Couldn’t comprehend the tree that had rooted on the rocks. Counted the roots. How did they get stuck? Measured the girth of the trunk and tried to keep track of the number of branches. The green locks fluttering in the wind. Memorized the positions of the leaves. Listened to the rustle. How did the sounds stick?
 
 
 

 
It was said that the beech was the oldest in the country. With just one flailing arm left. A relic whose leaves, color, were always greener than the other trees. More concentrated. Struck by lightning again. Dead.
 
 
 

 
Crossed the pasture and out through cattails where the ground was waterlogged. We lay on our bellies. Felt the damp. Stared into the clear waters of the pool. The bottom motionless. Silent. Warmth of the sun. Songs of the bird. How flies buzz and cow dung smells. That some bugs can run on the water. The fact that others can’t.
 
 
 

 
Each of us with a pocketed newt. Wet feet and blisters beginning. Towards the beech in the slope. Where it got so steep that a rope tied to a tree branch, with a short stick at the end, made for a great swinging vine. Learned speed and height. How to make each other swing higher and faster.
 
 
 

 
Close to the vine, the ship, the moon rocket, whatever we decided it was, we built our fort on the borderland between here and there. The border of where everything belonged to us. Kept watch. Defended our history in case the pursuers, real and imagined, resumed the hunt.
 
 
 

 
Sneaking, unnoticed. An attempt to disappear invisibly. The rocks and twigs dug into our knees. The smell of decaying leaves as we crawled through the brushwood to a safe haven. Halted. In between the rocks we hid our trophies. Where no one knew.
 
 
 

 
In the wintertime we would take the shortcut behind Tony’s house to the moat. Silent agreement to take the first strides together. Uncertainty before knowing. Someone else beat us to it. Longing to win the first lap. Promised triumphs, sure of disappointment. The ice intact.
 
 
 

 
Outside the house the trees grew so close together we couldn’t be seen. Here we built our last tree house. Higher and sturdier. Longed for nights of no sleep, under open skies. Water filled with star-isles and imagined silences.
 
 
 
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