First Came the Landscape

Ingela Ihrman
First Came the Landscape, 2023

Beech wood

First Came the Landscape is a giant stick skeleton made from the trunk, limbs and branches of a single beech tree that was blown down during Storm Eunice in 2022.

Created by Swedish artist Ingela Ihrman, the figure reflects the delicate cycle of life – a system of death and rebirth as things move from one form to another. It will remain here in this location until the pieces of wood – the pelvis, spine, femur, humerus and skull - naturally break down, returning back to the ground and benefiting the surrounding ecology of the earth as they decay.

The figure invites viewers to wonder at its meaning: is it an archaeological excavation of a giant, a lesson in human anatomy, or a hügelkultur – a raised horticultural bed of wood and plant debris?

The title expands the time axis of the place in which the figure rests and is reminiscent of what was here before, when the landscape was shaped by giant forces.

First Came the Landscape was originally commissioned by Uppsala Konstmuseum in 2022. This new version was commissioned by the Eden Project in 2023.