Träsket / The Swamp

A swamp is generally a forested wetland that varies in size and can be found all around the world, where the water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water, or seawater. Historically, humans have been known to drain and/or fill swamps and other wetlands to create more space for human development and to reduce the threat of diseases borne by swamp insects. Wetlands are removed and replaced with land that is then used for things like agriculture, real estate, and recreational uses. Many swamps have also undergone intensive logging and farming, requiring the construction of drainage ditches and canals. These ditches and canals contributed to drainage and, along the coast, allowed salt water to intrude, converting swamps to marsh or even to open water. Large areas of swamp were therefore historically lost or degraded. Europe has likely lost nearly half its wetlands and New Zealand, for example, lost 90% of its wetlands over a period of 150 years. Scientists now recognize that swamps provide ecological services including flood control, fish production, water purification, carbon storage and wildlife habitats, and in many parts of the world authorities therefore protect swamps nowadays. In Europe and North America, especially, swamp restoration projects are thus becoming widespread. 

In 2019 Christine Ödlund became caretaker of an allotment garden located just north-east of Stockholm’s city boundaries. Ödlund described the circumstances, in an interview with C-print. A journal about contemporary art, in 2020:

A friend of a friend, Elin Unnes, who is a music journalist and an author on plants and gardening, asked me if I would consider taking care of her lot since she lacked the time for it. Elin had through my art sensed a kinship of sorts between us on the account of an obsession with plants. I agreed despite having a great deal of preconceived notions about the culture revolving around community gardening. I hesitated since worrying whether this context would really appeal to me as an artist. A ‘boxed’ piece of land next to all the other boxes of land…However, there was a lot indicating a wide tolerance for odd expressions and differences between the lots so in the end I came to accept the offer. Ultimately, my enabling a state where plants, pollinators, humans and other animals share this bit of land, further nurtured my thoughts about how the city and nature can co-exist in a constructive and crucial way. The lot has become a symbol and a haven for this sort of coexistence. It’s become an integral part of my art and has allowed me to be self-sufficient, especially in the terms of colour pigment for my painting

Ödlund’s allotment is situated near Uggleviken (the Owl Bay), a former bay and lake, forming part of the Royal National City Park. Together with Lillsjön (the Small Lake), Laduviken (the Barn Bay) and Storängsbotten, Uggleviken used to be part of a bay forking across the Norra Djurgården (the Royal Game Park) area of Stockholm. Today it is reduced to a marsh, or a wet alder forest, with patches of reeds in its center. It is regarded as of great natural value and has been mentioned as one of the most interesting botanical and ornithological areas in Stockholm. The marsh’s catchment area, considered as one of the most important wetlands in Stockholm and an important biotope for many species, is relatively untouched by humans and mostly contains forest and open terrain.

Botanically, many rare species such as water sedge, lesser tussock-sedge, alternate-leaved golden saxifrage, small waterpepper, marsh stitchwort and marsh fern are present. Specimens in isolated ponds in the area contain species of Oligochaeta and Gastropoda, such as Valvata cristata and Anisus leucostoma. Many species of birds are found in the marsh, including thrush nightingale, redwing, dunnock and Eurasian wren. Smooth newt and common toad were both reported in 1996.

Because of the similarities between Träsket / The Swamp and Ödlund’s Owl’s Bay Swamp (2022, acrylics, plant pigments, oil and pen on canvas, 202 x 372), exhibited at Bozar, Brussels in the spring of 2023, it seems reasonable to assume that Träsket / The Swamp also depicts Owl’s Bay Swamp and is, therefore, one of the earliest (if not the earliest) major works by Ödlund, inspired by the surroundings around her allotment garden. Under the heading ‘The Swamp’, Ödlund writes the following in ‘Psychedelic Botany’ (article in Swedish Ecstasy, exhibition catalogue, Bozar – Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels):

As a transition zone, the swamp is the perfect metaphor for art. Both land and water play an important part in creating the environment. Some swamps are flooded woodlands, some are former lakes or ponds overtaken by trees and shrubs. Djurgården (The animal garden) in Stockholm is an area named after a park that King John III of Sweden founded in 1579. In it he kept deer, elk and reindeer. In the northern part, alongside the Little Bear Isthmus, where I have my allotment garden, you will find the Owl’s Bay Swamp. I often visit the swamp; there is something mythological about it. It is both beautiful and eerie, otherworldly and somehow connected to another dimension. A fourth dimension of both time and space, where my role as an artist can be a link between plant alchemy and the disconnected world of humans.

Provenance

CFHILL, Stockholm, Skogspromenad, 8 October – 3 November 2021.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired from the above).

Exhibitions

CFHILL, Stockholm, Skogspromenad, 8 October – 3 November 2021.

The Nordic Watercolour Museum, Skärhamn, Sweden, This Garden and its Spirits, 13 October 2024 – 2 February 2025.

Literature

(Eds.) Christine Ödlund & Louise Belfrage, Growing the Third Ear Under the Great Astral Mother Tree, 2022, no. 28, illustrated full spread in colour.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation