Jasper Rouwen, friends are forever at Spudworks, Lymington

“friends are forever” by Jasper Rouwen, curated by Nanna Egelund, at Spudworks, Lymington, 01/10/2024 – 23/10/2024.

In 2019, I cycled from Amsterdam to Dorset, entering the New Forest National Park just halfway through the ride. While searching for breakfast, I stumbled upon a curious scene that forced me to stop. A tall horse stood by the porch of a large white house, completely blocking the door and trapping the residents inside. Apart from the occasional swish of its tail, the horse stood motionless with no indication of moving anytime soon. This moment of a horse blocking the entrance to someone’s home stuck with me. Questions of harmony, freedom, and control arose, which sparked my imagination and desire to investigate how we connect with our natural landscape and its different inhabitants. Five years later, during my residency in the New Forest, I experienced and observed many more moments that highlighted the boundaries, oppositions, and intersections between the domestic and wild, public and private, strange and mundane—these moments included being chased by dogs running off their leashes, watching the interactions between ‘wild’ and domestic ponies, and hearing rumours of a severed deer’s head placed on a post in the neighbouring village. As I engaged more with life in the New Forest, I experienced a heightened closeness and attachment to the natural wild world whilst recognizing the degree of control needed to facilitate that possibility. From the Verderers who meet once a month to discuss the various offences within the forest and to protect the commoning animals, the coppicing techniques used to cut trees to ground level to stimulate healthy growth, to the measures taken to prevent encroachments on New Forest Land. This paradox stayed and guided me throughout the process of making works for this exhibition, in which I try to reconcile various opposites the same way the forest does. I merely scratched the surface of discovering a forest that offers so much. However, I do not believe uncovering everything is possible or even desirable. The New Forest seems to be defined by our human attempts to understand and control it. Yet, it somehow manages to resist and continues its own mystery, a historical, essential haven in short supply.

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