Vague Meadow

Vague Meadow is about moving local dandelions from one place to another. Native dandelions at an old croft in the municipality of Klippan are gradually moved to Hyllie during the length of the exhibition, as a way of thinking about marginal, vague, and unwanted edibles in our landspace.

There is a recessed area in the terrain. The top soil layer has been removed. These are the traces of archaeological excavations that were made about 15 years ago. In the excavations, there were leftovers for settlements from younger neolitic, or peasant-stone age (about 3000 years BC). It was during this time people began to grow land in Skåne.

In the recessed area, the boundaries of the croft have been marked with a few posts, in scale 1: 3. Within the selection, the dandelions are planted in the same position in relation to each other as they grew at the croft.

The dandelion is an invasive plant that was brought into Scandinavia in the 17th century as a garden plant and then spread wild.

The dandelion produces seeds without pollination. The seeds give rise to plants that are basically genetic copies of the mother plant. Dandelions therefore develop local variants that do not interfere with each other. Each such variant is a species of confusion similar to hundreds of other species in the genus dandelions. The same gene set-up is preserved throughout the generations, and evolution is thus very slow.

Dandelions are very nutritious and all parts of the plant are edible, including the root. The plant has a pronounced bitter taste.

Blog: http://www.700dandelions.bjornwangen.se

Bjørn Wangen
Sweden