G L A D E
VR INSTALLATION FOR LIBRARIES AND PUBLIC SPACES
In the spring of 2019, I designed the VR installation “Glänta” (Glade). Glänta was commissioned by the Regional Library of Region Jönköping County and the Libraries in the municipality of Vaggeryd, Sweden. Glänta was part of an exhibition with the purpose to highlight the ongoing Erasmus project VingRot *. The installation was created primarily for libraries, but also for other public spaces, like museums.
The inspiration for Glänta came from the forest; from the Swedish artist John Bauer's magical fairytale forests, from the forest as a place for recovery for today's people and as a historically important resource for survival; for people in Vaggeryd Municipality, Jönköping County, Sweden, the world ...
Through the design of the installation, I wanted to create the feeling and illusion of sitting in a quiet forest glade, surrounded by tall trees. The recognition in the forest is meant to create a feeling of security before taking part of the new digital VR technology.
The forest theme is also reflected in the choices of materials. Parts of the installation, such as the tree trunks and the leaves, are created in Japanese origami techniques, and the materials used are leather paper and recycled book pages in different languages. (Leather paper is a new, innovative material made of cellulose and latex which makes it strong as leather but look like paper.)
* VingRot is a project with local and international connections. One part of it is an Erasmus project together with libraries from five other European countries. The second part consists in discovering local stories, filming short films with a 360 camera and testing the use of digital possibilities in new ways, such as VR. The exhibition was part of drawing attention to the project and attracting interest in the films. The exhibition was also part of the Region Library Region Jönköping County's investment in "Digital first with the user in focus". The exhibition was shown in Vaggeryd, Skillingaryd, Habo, Eksjö and Vetlanda between July 2019 and March 2020.
See the exhibition poster below.
