TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / OCTOBER 2017 91
and I were in rural southern Sweden, tramping
along a dirt path through dense woods of pine
and beech. Suddenly, the sporadic birdcalls
were interrupted by the incongruous sounds of
electronic music. “Did you hear that?” asked
one of my daughters. We all nodded, continuing
toward the increasingly audible strains of
dreamy techno-pop. Reaching the top of a low
ridge, we found ourselves looking into a
clearing inhabited by strange, candy-colored
sculptures of insects, acorns and leaves arrayed
on a mirrored floor. With reflections of the
surrounding greenery beneath them, this
coterie out of Alice in Wonderland melded
surreally into the forest. “Cool!” yelled my
oldest as she ran ahead. For the next 10
minutes, we shimmied and spun around the
space to hypnotizing beats seemingly piped in
from the tops of trees.
As we later learned, the trippy middle-of-
the-woods disco is an installation titled In
Dreams by Berlin-based artists Nathalie
Djurberg and Hans Berg. It’s one of more than
70 works—including pieces by such celebrated
names as Marina Abramović, Antony Gormley
and Dan Graham—that are scattered across a
remarkable 40-hectare art park on the historic
Wanås estate. Located just outside the village of
Knislinge, Wanås makes for a perfect day trip
from either Malmö (a 90-minute drive) or
Copenhagen (two hours). With a history going
back to at least 1440, the estate is home to
numerous buildings in a mash-up of
architectural styles. Anchoring it all is a 1560sON A CHILLY
MID-APRIL
MORNING, MY
THREE YOUNG
CHILDREN
step-gabled, Renaissance-style castle, which is
flanked by two wings added in the 18th century.
Beyond those are several 19th-century farm
buildings that today serve as art spaces, a shop
and—as of this spring—a modestly stylish
11-room inn and a restaurant serving up locally
focused dishes that use ingredients from
Wanås’s own organic farm.
Some 75,000 people visited this unusual
cultural destination in 2016, and with the new
restaurant and hotel, more are expected this
year. Indeed, while we’d enjoyed glorious
solitude during our walk in the forest, we
emerged to find the restaurant’s long, light-
filled dining room buzzing. In the kitchen,
cooks were washing wild greens they had
foraged that morning for a salad with edible
flowers and house-made gravlax. Meanwhile,
in a nearby gallery, two dancers were
preparing for a performance for young
children beneath a fabric dome.W
anås has long been a pilgrimage
site for art-world insiders, but
most v isitors don’t fit t hat
profile. Many are from the
region: older couples, families with children, a
few of the Syrian refugees who have been
settled nearby. Everyone wanders the grounds
freely, without any of the hesitancy you often
see in big museums. Kids run around looking
for art as if they are on a treasure hunt.
“I think it’s thrilling to discover art in
nature,” said Elisabeth Millqvist, who, along
with her husband, Matthias Givell, is codirector
of the foundation that oversees Wanås. “It
makes you look more carefully. You wonder
what is ma n-made a nd what is nat ure.”
The labels are small and discreet at Wanås,
and a big part of the joy of the place is the
unfettered encounters with art that
it offers. Heading into the gallery where
rotating exhibitions are staged, I looked up and
noticed, near the top of the gabled roof, two
enormous overlapping clocks created by
Lithuanian-born artist Esther Shalev-Gerz.
One keeps real time, while the other has hands
that go backward. My initial reaction was to
interpret the work, titled Les Inséparables, as a
commentary on regressive politics and culture.
But t hen it occur red to me t hat a double clock is
actually a perfect symbol for Wanås: a place
that never forgets the past yet is moving toward
the future; it’s also a place where it is always
time for art.