Skien tekst eng

“PIVOT”
Mæla Middle School, Skien, Norway 2007-2010
(Skien Municipality/KORO Public art Norway)

The school's complex is unique for its focus on environmental resources. The school itself strikes a balance between outside and inside areas, both in its construction and conceptually.

On the glass facade of the cafe four-metre-tall human figures can be seen up against the windows, attempting to look in. The figures are peers, correctly depicted, but their presence changes according to the light conditions.
Sometimes they withdraw altogether and become silhuettes.
The images are melted into the glass; they are translucent. The two figures in the cafe are seen from the back, when viewed from the outside, or frontally seen from the inside. The figure in the library faces the other way. She is looking out. The size of the figures, and the way they address the people in the building, is confrontational. The figures are on the edge of the inside and the outside, between them and us - where the internal meets the external. The dichroic, coloured glass changes its quality and colour according to the viewer's position and the quality of the daylight and indoor conditions. When one glimpses oneself inside the four-meter-high figures, the mirrored reflection is complementary to the colour in the glass.

For the glasshouses at the two main pupils' entrances strong LED
floodlights produce, on the opposite wall, a huge shadow-image of everyone who enters the school. The glass has a milky surface that spreads the coloured light and also makes a projection surface for the shadows. From the outside the colours will be experienced as an evenly spread of colours that fills the whole entrance house. From the transparent indoor hall nearby, the shadows themselves can be observed. The situation will resemble the figures in the facade-glass, however, in this case the huge shapes are produced individually, but will seem more generalized. The empty shadow resembles a human being anywhere, with any attributes and point-of-view.