Hella Rock
For the University of Southern Maine I photographed the new art installation Hella Rock near the Casco Bay Community Gardens along the Eastern Promenade in Portland.
The art was created by Icelandic artist Ólöf Nordal in the spring of 2020 and installed the end of last year. Nordal was a USM Artist-in-Residence and worked with USM sculpture students to create replicas of a 5000 year-old Icelandic lava rock and a 300 million year old Maine granite stone Nordal found on the USM campus. The lava rock, which was shipped from Iceland, and the Maine granite replica are placed apart from the granite rock and the lava replica.
After the art was installed, I returned to the promenade to photograph the art during the first sunrise of 2021.
Nordal states: “This piece questions, among other things, the remaking of nature and our ability to judge the truthfulness of natural nature based on one’s knowledge and experiences. Which and what is true, genuine or original? The work also questions cultural translation– what gets lost and gained in translation, often as a result of misunderstanding.”
