The Egg

Pilane skulpturpark 2018

The shape of an egg is endless: a circle with an edge. Inside the egg is the birth, the unknown future possibilities, all imaginable and unimaginable events. Rebirth? The egg as a shape and symbol has close connections to the eternal. This project moves this symbol of eternity to a new context where it is actualized in the light of modern and contemporary history. Both the shape and the material mimics a natural egg, but upscaled. Mimesis. The human ability to copy and bend nature as she wishes separates her from other species. Today our maps no longer contains the white spots that only for a few generations ago signified virgin land. Every new discovery has ever since involved a conquest and a looting of natural resources. 

With a thirst for new conquests that have so far seemed unquenchable, human activity has begun to scratch the fine weave that connects the planet’s life. The ecosystems that we ourselves live in and are dependent on for our existence are threatened. Now we are trying to replace naturally occurring functions with technical solutions – building ecosystem services – while turning our eyes to new planets; new pristine land to harvest from. The egg is in a cup made of aluminum – a hemisphere with visual connection to the first spacecraft in the Sputnik program. It was unbridled human innovation that made space travel a reality. The same ability devastated much of the planet and now allows us to artificially recreate them in a moment of delayed heroism. In the near future, we may also be facing a new birth: artificial intelligence, wonderful and terrible. The egg can be seen as a symbol of all this. Text by Erik Jönsson