Meadow Traces

MEADOW TRACES

Coastal landscape

North Sea Coast | Sweden

The coastal territory of western Sweden, located in the North Sea comprises a complex and diverse landscape shaped by a series of transitional scenarios between water and land that form diverse ecosystems: from sandy and stony reefs, cliff formations, river estuaries, coastal meadows and forest to an extensive archipelago of granite islands. This coastline includes an important biodiversity of native species of flora and fauna, as well as migratory species. A natural biodiversity that coexists with an important cultural landscape characterized by coastal populations that have their origins in fishing and port villages.

The site-specific intervention Meadow Traces proposes a nature-based approach that aims to reflect on how to interact, coexist and dialogue with the coastal landscape, perceiving and understanding its natural dynamics and temporality as a key aspect of its essence.

The intervention proposes a series of walking traces that highlight a fragment of a coastal meadow located in the bay of Rågelund. A landscape fragment alongside the Kattlegattliden cycling route. The site-work is conceived as a symbolic scope of this particular botanical area and the enhancement of its biodiversity. Grasses, herbs, shrubs. Habitat for diverse insects and pollinating species.

Living-Lab: The meadow is understood as a living laboratory. A place of exploration and dissemination, where biological processes, ephemeral states present in nature, timescapes and seasonalities are perceived.

The intervention aims to highlight the ecological importance of this landscape fragment, as well as to emphasize its biological processes, without trying to control its natural dynamics or its spontaneity. On the contrary, trying to let nature perform its own role, as a living and interconnected organism in constant transformation.

With this perspective, the site work proposes to emphasize the natural process of vegetation, and to encourage nature to continue its own spontaneous growth over time, progressively erasing the trace left by human activity and returning to its own dynamics.