As part of Collecting Europe Victoria & Albert Museum and the Goethe-Institut in London have commissioned 12 international artists to imagine what Europe might look like 2 000 years from now. How might our present be viewed from the future?
Created in a range of media from digital and interactive installations to film, sugar sculpture, tapestry, live performance, musical interventions and pocket-sized publications, the artworks will transform spaces across the V&A Museum. Finnish artist duo IC-98 and designer Kustaa Saksi have created a contemporary millefleurs tapestry (a pattern of thousands of flowers) that transports us into the future.
Sea levels have risen and the human race is long gone, but its effects are everywhere. The tapestry imagines the site where the Svalbard Global Seed Vault once stood. Here, seeds from around the world, forecasted to thrive in the considerably warmer climate of the future, have sprouted into lush meadows. The actual seeds of depicted plants are woven into the fabric of the carpet, thus becoming pregnant with the future inhabitants of Europe.
IC-98 is an artist duo comprising Patrik Söderlund and Visa Suonpää. They are known for their animated film installations, which combine classical drawing and digital effects, often depicting landscapes shaped by nature and technology. IC-98 presented Finland in the 56th Venice Biennale. Kustaa Saksi is a Finnish artist and designer who specialises in graphic storytelling through pattern design and textile art.
IC-98 and Kustaa Saksi in collaboration: A World in Waiting. Norfolk House Music Room, The British Galleries, V&A, from 1 February 2017.
Read more: Collecting Europe
Photo: IC-98 & Kustaa Saksi, A World in Waiting, 2017. Detail.