Monday, June 16, 2014

The Labyrinth that Solomon built

When you hear of a labyrinth, stranger,
That Solomon molded from his intellect and built with stones set in an arc:
Copy it’s structure, shape and diversity
True to scale, using strokes of dark ink,
And, in so doing, observe the innumerable turns,
Namely the perfectly round paths that lead from the inside to the outside
And then curve in an arc back to the inside again,
And see it as the circular path of life,
Demonstrated by the slipperyness of the dangerous twists and turns,
(which emerge) from the rounded, circular bends;
for life’s path turns little by little –
like a dragon, with his evil wriggling movements-
seemingly creeping forward imperceptibly.
The Labyrinth has a crooked gate through which it is difficult to gain entrance:
As far as you have traveled, hurrying from the outside to the inside,
You will then have to travel through the narrow, winding, misleading paths
(from) the inside to the depths of the egress;
day by day it bewitches you with it’s paths to the outside,
and, mockingly, it plays its game with you
with the turns of (vain) hope,
like a dream with it’s blank faces,
intil Cronos, the prime mover, slowly vanishes
and, alas, that dark worker, Death, receives you,
who dashes your chances of ever reaching the egress.



Photo © Anne Senstad

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Channel 8 News Interview with Anne Senstad and Sugarcane farmer Ronnie Waguespack Jr

A 2010 Louisiana Channel 8 News interview with 
Sugarcane Farmer Ronnie Waguespack Jr and artist 
Anne Senstad on the making of The Sugarcane 
Labyrinth and the politics of bio fuel, agriculture, 
economy and sustainability.


Wednesday, June 4, 2014


Illustration and poster design by Maria Larsson 


Excerpt from The Sugarcane Labyrinth 




The Sugarcane Labyrinth by Anne Senstad
(In French and English)
11.22 min loop
Soundtrack by JG Thirlwell, 4 channel surround sound

Edited by Manuel Sander

Video Funded by : Norwegian Visual Artists Remuneration Fund/Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond

A short film about the making and experience of The Sugarcane Labyrinth located in Theriot, Louisiana. The film shows the experience of the walk through, getting lost in the labyrinth and the physicality of the volume of the labyrinth through the use of split screen. The added extractions of poetry and literature bring the viewer into a labyrinthian experience of the mind.

As a film about land practice and the phenomenology of space and land, Senstad has included the process of construction and time, as agriculture here represents nature and labor of the land through working with farmers and farmhand through the seasons. By using pink ribbons to construct the architectural formation of the labyrinth, the ribbons represent both mythology and the artists touch. The film is a portrait of The Sugarcane Labyrinth from construction to final completion with the framework being the experience of the piece itself.


The music of J G Thirlwell, known from Foetus, Manorexia, Steroid Maximus and Venture Bros, was composed especially for the film, and brings the viewer through the labyrinthian process with beautiful, hypnotic and haunting soundscapes.

The Sugarcane Labyrinth in Theriot, LA was supported by The Royal Norwegian Consulate General Houston, Kleentek Theriot and Triple K & M Farms Inc, 

PROSPECT 3 SATELLITE
The Sugarcane Labyrinth by Anne Senstad 
Curated and Produced by Pamala Bishop

Opening: October 25, 2014 
St. Roch New Orleans, USA

“I leave to several futures (not at all) my garden of forking paths.” 

The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges, 1941


Photo © Anne Senstad