All photos by Oskar Sandström. For Forest Sake was first tried out in Floda by Random Bastards.
English designer and artist Richard Holland will be exhibiting his skateable art installation for one night only in Stockholm this evening. Richard lives in the wilderness outside of Umeå in northern Sweden. His piece For Forest Sake has been made reality with the help of Grolsch Studios, which is an art-funding project by VICE and Grolsch. That means that we gave him the assistance of an experienced mentor, Jeanette Steinsland – one of the bosses at Gallery Steinsland Berliner – and whatever stuff he needed to make his idea reality. Since Richard is an old skater-boy, he chose to combine skate, design and the wilderness of Floda where he lives.
Instead of sending everyone who wants to see Richard's piece (and possbily try it out) to the north, we decided to put it on show in the Swedish capital. I called him up prior the opening of the exhibition to find out a little bit about what's going on.
VICE: Hi Richard. How are things going?
Richard Holland: All good. I'm in in Jeanette's gallery grabbing a quick coffee. Just hanging out somewhere quiet.
Is everything set up for tonight?
I think so. We're just waiting for some prints. But I mean that's OK, cause we know where they need to go.
How do you feel about your work now when it's arrived in Stockholm?
It feels great! I've been stuck in the wilderness for three and a half years so I mean any civilisation is fun. It reminds me of when I lived in London.
Yeah – tell me why you moved from London to Umeå?
We don't live in Umeå. We live 45 minutes out of Umeå in the forest.
Well, that's an even bigger contrast. Why did you move to the forest?
Why not? I mean I had a design agency in Shoreditch for 12 years. And a lot of our clients were European-wide anyway. My partner and I were at a stage where we either had to develop the company and grow massive or stay hands-on. And we kind of just wanted a change as well. So we found Floda and were like, "Fuck it, we just go there. What's the worst that can happen?"
Is there a big skate community in that area?
Yeah, it is a skate community around there. It's not so massive, but… You know, I went to London because of skateboarding, because I've been skating all my life. So I've grown up with it. I still love doing it. And there's nowhere to skate in Floda – there's a place in Umeå where you can go skate. We started Floda 31, which is a design/research place out in the wilderness, to bring people out there. And it's worked really well. We get people from all over the world to come out and stay in the wilderness and have space to be creative. And we help them develop.
Was For Forest Sake a project that you had thought about prior getting this opportunity?
Well it's always in my head you know – to make some sort of skateable thing. And when the opportunity came along I was like, "OK, maybe this can be the start of something". Because I've done quite a lot of installations, and just purely from a production standpoint – you know the budget's not been big enough to do something as big as I'm used to be doing. But I think what was really great with this form is that it's sort of a stepping-board to do something bigger. To present the idea that you have: This kind of sculpture/skateable thing in the wilderness, and I think the setting is really beautiful. And it hasn't been done before.
Apart from the installation's original place being in the forest, is there a particular reason to why you chose to work with wood rather than stone or concrete?
Well, when you do complex curves wood is kind of easier. And I've made things in stone, and I've made things in metal, and I love that [wood] sort of has a mind of its own. You can mould it to your form as much as you like. And you sometimes have to trick it in to go where you want it to go. And I've got a lot of experience in working with fold and bending ply, and making curves. I like that the form isn't exactly what I had in mind. In my head it was this abstract sketch that I wasn't entirely sure how it was going to end up being until I started to actually make it, and feel how the ply was bending. I kind of like that from an artistic perspective. I mean, if I were to make the same piece again, it wouldn't be exactly the same cause you know, it's not made on a computer – it's kind of freehanded still. It's not digitally worked out and precise. Maybe the piece would loose something if I worked it out in a 3D-model.
Do you have any plans to develop this idea and make similar pieces in the near future?
I would like to do a bigger, skateable, sculptural element in the forest where we are. That would be nice. A lot of the time it's very reactive. You know, skateboarding reacts to the environment that it's in. When you skate, you see stuff and you respond to it. And everybody's different and everybody's got a different skillset and personality. And that's how you skate the city and that' show you skate stuff – you react to it. It was kind of weird making a stand-alone piece because in a way it's not this reactive, organic thing, which you get usually from skating. If anything, there's a reaction to the wilderness. I don't know, what I really like is having new and different spaces to create things in. Because I always try to make things work with the space which it's in because it feels more natural that way. Again, it comes back to being reactive. I'm reacting to the space I'm building in, and then I can kind of create a from that works… I think this is the smallest piece I've ever done actually.
Oh wow. This one is pretty big.
Yeah. I was part of this collective called the Side Effects of Urethane that sort of started this skateable sculptural installation thing back in 2001. And we've done quite a lot of installations. When the collective sort of dissolved I continued with the skateable sculpture thing. So I've done a lot of really big installations.
So essentially the aim is to do bigger ones?
I would love to do a really big one in the forest. That's why this one feels like a tester for doing really big ones.
Is it your own piece of land?
Yeah.
So you're free to do whatever you want?
Yeah. Again, that's something I wouldn't be able to do in London. It's crazy, the amount of space we've got. You wouldn't be able to get anything for the same amount of money in London. With this, it's been really great to do whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted and to be commissioned to do this. I think it's really nice.
Finally, how has it been working with Jeanette?
Great! I mean Jeanette's wonderful! She's just really easy-going and very professional and she knows her stuff.
That's nice. Thanks, Richard.
For Forest Sake is exhibited tonight only at Ljunggren, Stockholm, Sweden from 7PM to 1AM. It's free!