Jordi NN

Jordi NN

Melodías de tensiones sinérgicas

_About

This years’ fire sculpture by Jordi NN refers directly to the leading theme of the Ethno-Festival SVIESTS – iron. Many of its elements include iron and will form permanent objects, only the centre of the sculpture will be burned in several levels.

The sculpture will use the principle of tensegrity. Its different ornamental elements and also the several levels of the central piece will be connected without direct physical contact, but through metal ropes that will form a tensioned structure thus creating an impression of light elements floating in the air.

As always, Jordi NN uses in his sculpture local ornaments and symbols – this year he draws inspiration from Latvian traditional woven belt ornaments. Symbolically they intertwine without touching each other but forming a strong, tense connection between the earth and heaven, or this world and the other world.

Daina Zalāne

Tensegrity is a physical principle that can be found in many places in nature, also in the human body. It is being used in construction and even in space research.

An interesting fact is that in Contemporary Arts one of the first artists to use tensegrity in his works is a Latvian artist from Cēsis – Kārlis Johansons. The same region where the work was installed. In the 1920ies he created works that are nowadays in the centre of global Avant-garde Art. His tensegrity constructions are globally recognised as innovative inventions.

The basic idea of all Johansons’ work is connected to one question – how to create stability when the material is connected with simple connections without merging or glueing the elements or chemical reactions. Johansons called the simple connection a “cold connection” as opposed to the hot riveting or welding. “All cold connections are crosses”, Johansons declared, all his works explore the crossing of material.

The Cēsis History and Arts Museum holds a number of painting, sketches and other works by Kārlis Johansons, however the originals of his tensegrity sculptures have not been preserved. 

Event

_Info

Event / Valmiermuižas etnomūzikas festivāls

Where / Latvia

Date / August 2023

_Location

_Curator

Daina Zalāne

_Organiser

Pēteris Kalniņš

Valmiermuižas alus darītava

Artwork

_Dimensions

Height / 4.5 m

Width / 10 m

Depth / 10 m

_Material

Metal profiles

Reclaimed wood

_MEtal Technician

Pēteris Kalniņš

_Volunteer

Karlis Kandero

_Torches

Andris Roze

Media

_Work in progress

_Video Burning