Remediation installation, 2020
The Forbidden Garden is an interdisciplinary art project by Cecilia Jonsson that takes its point of departure in the contaminated soil surrounding the Rejmyre glassworks and forms part of Rejmyre Art Lab’s residency program DETOX – Clean it up. The project investigates the, in Sweden, still relatively unknown remediation method of phytoremediation – a technique that uses various plants’ biological processes to absorb, break down, or stabilize soil and water pollutants.
Using phytoremediation as a remediation strategy has effects beyond simply cleaning the soil. It is an aesthetic, natural, and passive method whose main appeal lies in keeping the soil in place and restoring it in a biologically safe way. Treating the soil in situ also reduces the exposure of pollutants to humans, the environment, and plant and animal life, rather than excavating the soil and transporting it to a disposal site.
During 2020 a small, enclosed garden (approx. 2 m²) was established within the fenced-off area behind the factory and filled with around ten so-called hyperaccumulating plant species. The selected plants are well-known species for phytoextraction (where contaminants are absorbed through the roots and accumulate in the above-ground parts of the plant), chosen because they are fast-growing, have high biomass, and demonstrate strong tolerance to and accumulation of the metals and inorganic pollutants identified in soil samples from the site. Consideration was also given to plant species native to the Nordic region, as well as to root depth and root spread, which limits the remediation to approximately one meter below the surface.
Remediating contaminated soil can take anywhere from 3 to 20 years. However, for remediation to actually take place, the process depends on human interaction – namely, harvesting. The plants’ biomass – in other words, their contaminated biological material – must be removed before the plants wither in the autumn, as otherwise the toxins would return to the soil. By adopting what may be a limiting long-term perspective and the repetition of a recurring action, the project proposes that time can be turned into an opportunity. By allowing each phase of the remediation process to have a distinct character – one that also creates a sense of identity for the site while the remediation is ongoing – a framework for a future green infrastructure that adds experiential value to the place is created.
Cecilia Jonsson is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores connections between different fields of scientific and cultural knowledge in order to understand the natural world and our relationship to it. Grounded in the context of the ecological crisis, her interests lie in the terrain where both possible and limited ideas of nature are formed (or have been formed), and in nature as a medium through which ideas – shaped by sociopolitical and cultural forces – can begin to be re-formed. Inspired by scientific methods and site-specific navigation, her installations, sculptures, video, and sound works often make visible concrete manifestations of processes and natural phenomena. Her projects develop as investigations into the physical and ideological properties of the raw materials that underpin human existence – from their origins deep within the earth, through extraction and transformation, to global exploitation. By aligning objective research methods with personal, subjective experience, her work merges biology and history through a materiality that binds art, science, technology, and ecological awareness into a contemporary alchemy.