City of Nithstang - Nithing Pole Series
Nithstang refers to a Nordic medieval practice in which the skull of a dead animal was placed on the end of a ‘nithing’ pole and directed toward enemies to ward off and curse them.
City of Nithstang has become a conceptual space from which to draw ideas; a place where the discreet decisions of public policy are manifest in the architecture and structure of the city space. It’s a place designed to function for a certain populace at the expense and repression of others. The ideology of this place is writ large in concrete and oppressive doctrine takes the form of brutal architectural apparatus, symbolic of perpetual imbalance. The ‘City’ acts as an allegory for the brutality of our modern age, the onward march of neoliberalism and civilisations progression to further detach itself from humanity. Drawing on historic Nordic cursing rituals enacted in a modern context, City of Nithstang harnesses the kinetic energy of a collision between old and new to transport the viewer into a near future environment designed to stave off and demonize its victims.
