Project turns 7.2t of paperboard into art installation

Iggesund Paperboard offered Hedenskog the opportunity to be an artist in residence as part of its long tradition of working with artists. When the company celebrated its 300th anniversary at the end of the last century, it asked the well-known Swedish painter Mårten Andersson to depict various aspects of its production process. And for the past 15 years Inger Drougge Carlberg, a textile artist who has increasingly been working with paper pulp, has had a studio on site at the mill. It has also staged the Black Box project, in which seven international designers had to fill a box of specific dimensions with contents that challenged the performance abilities of Invercote.

Hedenskog’s installation has the working name of ‘Asylum’ and consists of six paperboard towers enclosing a space. Viewers can look into the space but not enter it. On the outside the towers are not colored; their structure together with the lighting creates various nuances of grey. On the inside they are painted in fluorescent colors, which create light that radiates out between the towers and through peepholes. This, Hedenskog said, is, ‘a reflection of the current situation in Europe’.

‘Hundreds of thousands of refugees want to get inside but who most often only get a glimpse of what is inside Europe’s walls.’

‘For me there exists a tension between the limitlessness of art and the fact that I am in a strict, production-oriented environment where everything is based on rationality,’ added the artist. ‘I’ve worked with paper-based materials for several periods during my artistic career. Now it feels terrific to be able to work with material from Iggesund, which has such strong environmental documentation.’

Staffan Sjöberg, public relations manager at Iggesund Paperboard, said: ‘Our own success is very dependent on all the creative people around the world who make fantastic things from Invercote. So of course we want to foster creativity both on the artistic level but also in the form of the innovations that our customers in the packaging segment put their heart and soul into.’

Iggesund Paperboard recently announced three winners in its project challenging the world’s designers to create better and more sustainable consumer packaging.