LISLE, Ill. (AP) - A Danish artist has built six giant troll statues scattered throughout an outdoor museum in a western Chicago suburb.
Thomas Dambo’s “Troll Hunt” at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle was inspired by Scandinavian folklore and his love of the wilderness.
One sculpture is 50-feet (15-meters) long and features an open mouth that children can climb in. Other statues tower over the landscape at 15- to 20-feet-tall (4-to-6-meters-tall) and carry a spear or a rock.
Sue Wagner, Morton’s vice president of education, said she discovered Dambo while searching the web for outdoor or tree-related sculptures.
“His work was a surprise and a delight,” Wagner said. “As soon as I saw his work, I was like, I want that guy. I want him here.”
Dambo arrived for an artist residency in April after crafting other art projects in Korea and Mexico. The 38-year-old said he views the trolls as border guards between nature and the industrial world.
“I walked up on this hill, and I’m like, I’m standing on the frontier, the clash between these two different sides of this story,” Dambo said. “And then I was like, I need to have a big troll standing here and guarding so that none of these cars runs up here and tramples down the whole forest.”
More than 60 volunteers helped construct the statues on-site out of reclaimed and recycled wood. The trolls’ faces, hands and feet were created in Dambo’s Copenhagen studio.
Dambo said he hopes people who search for the trolls throughout the arboretum come away with a greater appreciation for nature.
“One thing that I would really like my trolls to do is try to bring people out of their safe zone in their cars and go exploring nature a little bit,” he said.
The exhibit opens Friday and will likely run for at least a year.
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Information from: Daily Herald, http://www.dailyherald.com
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