The driving force behind the work of the artist, poet or scholar is a sense of awe and wonder. In Tina Eskilsson's case with regard to the natural cycle, the all-permeating process, that she examines and conveys using tools of her own invention.
We are formed floating weightless in water, and three-quarters of our bodies consist of it. We die from a lack of water, and we die if we sink into it.
It changes form from a liquid to a solid, resting as a vehicle in itself. It rises invisible in the form of a gas into the atmosphere, lies as a fog over the landscape and falls to the ground as rain. Our planet is called Earth, but would more aptly be called Water. All the water that exists has always existed, not a drop can be added. We can, however, eventually lose it, thus transforming our vibrant world into a lifeless rock in the vastness of space.
Everything in Tina Eskilsson's works is about movement. The lifegiving light transforms the water to projections of geometrical shapes, ever-changing, complex and astoundingly beautiful. Icicles melt, water drips into containers, with the resulting sound marking the passage of time. Images of people swimming and diving. Circular mirrors create holes in the water's surface, directing the attention to the viewer's own presence and position in space. A wandering polar bear explores the expanses, from one image to the other, in a movement running counter to the path of our gaze as we read these lines. Hence the bear's movement becomes an incantation aimed at reversing the disastrous course we have embarked upon.
In these images, the viewer encounters both a brief instance and eons of time, both a personal life's journey and that of the entire world.
- Written by Björn Springfeldt
Photography Gunnar Bergkrantz, Johan Werner and Tina Eskilsson
Text Björn Springfeldt and Tina Eskilsson
Translation Richard Griffth and Katarina Frank–Fudge
Graphic Design John Eyre
Printed by TMG Stockholm
Publised with support from the Längmanska Cultural Foundation.
