Description (full description: Click this heading)

Kamille (Danish for chamomile)

Between our property and the sea lies a field. It is as flat as a pancake and with a length of more than 1 kilometer. On both sides the field is limited by windbreaks of conifers having for long seen their best. The area is called The Havskifters and a long time ago it posed as seabed. And seabed it might eventually become once again J
Farmers have persistently throughout centuries aimed at cultivating the soil, yet still with a poor outcome, just as the field repeatedly is being flooded by seawater.

From our property we have a view to the sea, and half of the year – that is when the farmer does not grow anything in the field – we can cross over to reach the sea. At this time of the year, that is 5 months after harvest, it is still a stubblefield. Would you know what it is like to walk in a stubblefield? I can tell you, not much is happening. Once in a while there is a bird, and from time to time you scare deer hiding in the windbreaks. But not every time you go there. If I look down into the soil nothing much is at stake here, neither. Except from the stubbles left over from the summer you see almost nothing. Yet, this is where I meet the chamomile. And except from a little lost grain that has germinated and is now growing, the chamomile is the only fresh and green. It is challenging to see it being vital in January when almost everything else has gone hibernating.

In this part of the field, going out and going home again, I have been thinking. I have been formulating my “manifesto”. A manifesto that does not exist in the form of a unity written down – despite my ambitions. It might as well never happen. Yet, nevertheless, I have decided to have the chamomile make up its visual identity.

January, 2017
Jan Skovgård