Et in Arcadia ego / The Land of the Rock Paths / Ingrid Borum

Fernization due to summer vacation only on Friday 12 August at 16-19 Background / Expedition to Hindu Kush / Lennart Edelberg

The works in the exhibition depict altars, self-built houses, bridges and places of worship with the gray rocky landscape as
a background. Through large paper paintings, I describe fragments from my journey through the Land of Rock Paths,
on an expedition to an isolated people in the Hindu Kush, the mountain range between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Land of Rock Paths appeared as a pastoral Arcadia, where the pristine, pre-industrial nature of the valleys
has become a prominent element in the display – so prominent that several of the paper works bear the title
'Altar for Spinoza's God'.
The mountain dwellers here were still animists and had been isolated in the impassable mountains since the
Indo-European migrations, long before our era. It felt like visiting the Scandinavian
Bronze Age. A culture shock and a journey through time.
The works are also initiated by the meeting in 2010 with the book 'Nuristan Buildings' (1984) by Lennart Edelberg,
who has done research in the same mountain area.

“The Kafirs, it was believed, had retained ancient cultural traits that could be traced back to the
exodus of the Aryan tribes from the Caucasus more than 2,500 years ago. Thus their way of life offered a glimpse into the distant
European past.” Text / Moesgaard Museum

The fact that Edelsberg's thorough and construction-technical book has meant a lot to me is also due to some complicated
fate regarding the Borum-Morandi expedition's (mainly) missing photo documentation.
Lennart Edelberg's book inspired me to try, in the period 2010-2020, to paint and reproduce the impressions
from the journey through the Land of Rock Paths and from our lost photos - in the painting series Kafiristan Works, 15 paintings/
format 195x175cm/ Acrylic on canvas 2010-20.

Et in Arcadia ego 'The Land of Rock Paths' is an independent reinterpretation on paper and a supplement to this series.

Photos from Kalash Kafiristan kindly provided by Italo Bertolasi, Milan and Nini Morelli, Venice

Ingrid Borum
Instagram: ingridborum

Ingrid Borum / book, i.a. on the Kafiristan Expedition: 'A Painters Manual' 2017

About the Stadens Museum
The Stadens Museum for Art is located in the Loppebygningen between Christiania's two main entrances and is visited by a large international audience.