The Health Spring: DIY Petalite Lithium Generator – Erosion Sculpture

The artist’s starting point is the fact that lithium deposits seem to coincide geographically with what once was holy springs, which later came to be health springs.

Together with the sculpture a wall mounted text work follows a walk from the decommissioned Nyköping mine on the island of Utö outside Stockholm to the health spring on the same island. The walk connects the two water filled holes in the ground, one a former mine, the other a former holy spring. The island of Utö is where petalite first was found in 1818, and later the element lithium was discovered in the petalite mineral.

Hanna Ljungh (b. 1974) has for some time dedicated her art practice to the matter we describe as land, soil, stone and mountain. Her work reflects upon and questions the fine line between what we call human and non-human forms of existence and the complex relations between them. Her nearly six-hour long film I am mountain, to measure impermanence (2016) depicting the melting ice cap of Sweden’s highest mountain got wide recognition in Sweden and internationally.

Hanna Ljungh works with film, photography, sculpture and installation. She lives and works in Stockholm. Ljungh has an education from Parsons School of Design, New York and Konstfack, Stockholm. Recently her work has been shown at: Kunsthall Trondheim; Kristianstads Konsthall; Studio Hippolyte and HIAP, Helsinki; The Swedish Cultural Institute, Paris; Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul; Moderna Museet, Malmö and Fondazione Pini, Milan. Her work is a part of several private collections and can be found at Public Art Agency Sweden, Stockholm art and Region Skåne.

The exhibition is the second part of a whole investigating ways to create resilience in a world filled with crises. The first part of the exhibition highlighted works by the Finnish artist Mari Keski-Korsu. The exhibition has received support from the Finnish Heritage Agency.