Kura skymning (Huddle in the Dusk)
Kura skymning is an outdoor installation made to interact with the fading daylight. It is also changing with the spaces around it, as you can see in the photos below.
The concept is from older times in Scandinavia, where the idea of “kura skymning” (=huddle in the dusk) was a fairly regular routine where people during the long hour of dusk waited for the darkness to fall before they lit a candle or a kerosene lamp to be able to continue their actions. While the light was fading, people were talking, resting, or using this time to comtemplate. It was also called “vila skymning” (Rest in the Dusk) and even “skvallra skymning” (Gossip in the Dusk), according to the book “Anden i lampan” (“The Genie of the Lamp”) by ethnologist Jan Garnert. There is interesting information about this phenomenon in Garnert’s article “On the cultural history of Nordic light and lighting“.
The installation was first shown at Kulturnatten in Höör in September 2015. Here, the fading light in the sky was visible through the hole in the top of the installation.
The material is a tent construction in thin metal, covered in thin foil blankets put together by hand. The tent is 3 x 3 x 2 metres and inside there are seats with cushions and rugs to sit down for a while in the chilling evenings.
In the four following photos, you can see the fading light through the roof hole, and how the contrast of the light and colour is differing during the long hour of the darkening evening.
By night in Höör – a bit of wind and the surrounding artificial lights seemingly make the installation take on a life of its own:
