Penarie

After the locals from Zurenborg (participating in EXPO 2018) chose Nick Hullegie to rethink their neighbourhood, the roundabouts of the area as “neutral spaces” caught his attention. Two roundabouts exist in close proximity of each other and confirm a certain cliché: one is home to a sculpture and the other to a tree (here we find “Penarie”). Earlier in his career, Hullegie already used the roundabout as a platform for his minimalist looking sculptures, utilizing architectural structures. Now as the traffic is guided in circles along a small field of grass and a tree, a white steel ladder is present as well. Strangely, the ladder isn’t supported by the tree and reaches up towards the sky. Even stranger, the middel isn’t a ladder any longer: Nick Hullegie takes a part from the original object and transforms it into a chair, which is twisted in a surreal way. “Penarie” he calls this: trouble. It does seem problematic for those wishing to use this object. He strips both ladder and chair from their capacities and combines them into a structure, which can be admired from all sides thanks to its position. On the other roundabout we find the sculpture ‘Girl on blossom branch’ from Axel Wallenberg. Nick Hullegies installation works as an absurd suggestion of how the girl reached the blossom branch.