A panoramic bunch of needle and thread.
Museum Panorama Mesdag in The Hague has been in existence for 140 years and kicks off the anniversary year with a special first: the artwork One Hundred Thousand Trees and a Forest of Wire by the Hague textile artist Sara Vrugt will be exhibited for the first time..
For a year Sara Vrugt worked with more than a thousand volunteers on a forest of 100 square meters. The project arose from her concerns about the climate. With an embroidered forest Sara wants people to participate in the creative process and let them look at nature with different eyes: “I want to create something together that conveys a message about the world in which we live. Seen in this way, my projects are a form of craftivism, campaigning through art, not by pointing a finger, but with optimism and a wink. ”
The forest is shown in all its stages: young shoots, mature trees and dying stumps. The canvas is hung in a spiral form – Vrugt’s variation on the panorama form – in which the visitor can wander. Scents and sounds will evoke memories. All senses are addressed. In contrast to the painted illusion of Mesdag’s Panorama of Scheveningen – the painting that should not resemble a painting – Vrugt’s panorama focuses on the tactility of the material and the visible handwork.
The forest is made of perishable material and seeds from the native seed bank of Staatsbosbeheer are added in the seam. As soon as the artwork reaches its final place in the garden of Museum Belvédère in 2023, the canvas will decay and the seeds will germinate in a new forest. The presentation One Hundred Thousand Trees and a Wire Forest will soon be on view at Museum Panorama Mesdag. Museum Panorama Mesdag is a unique museum with the Panorama of Scheveningen as the artistic highlight of Hendrik Willem Mesdag. It is a private museum with a permanent collection of personal works by Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831-1915), his wife Sientje van Houten (1834-1905) and contemporaries. In addition, the museum presents temporary exhibitions on Mesdag’s contemporaries, the phenomenon of panorama and contemporary art.
