How Does the Crack Willow Crack

A sound installation and guided walk by artist Elisabeth Brun, performed with urban developer Anna Maria Hellner. The walk takes you into the world of trees: the secret lives of the Crack Willows of Lövholmen, opening up for dialogue between an arborist and a sound installation.

As described by the curator Jasmine Hinks: “With an artistic process that draws attention to the relations between human and environment – and inviting us to be attentive to how we move through space, pause, observe and listen – Elisabeth Brun combines tools of documentary filmmaking and field recordings using contact microphones to gather narratives of living beings beyond the human.”

The walk begins at the square of Liljeholmsbron, taking approximately 40 minutes, ending at Färgfabriken, and was first performed in June 2023.

The project has resulted in e.g. the video installation The Crackle, which is currently in progress.

Above photo credit: Jonas Dahlberg

“By the industrial site of Lövholmen in Stockholm, grow some crooked old trees called Crack Willows. They tend to grow along riversides,  and are often kept there as their root-systems hold the riversides together, preventing them from eroding into the water. Their trunks are wide and thick, the wood is dry and brittle. The trees get their name from the sound that is heard when branches break off, fall into the water and float away, in order to seed, bud and grow somewhere else.”