veronika sedlmair & brynjar sigurðarson's fountain sprays ephemeral rainbow across river enz

Veronika Sedlmair and Brynjar Sigurdarson present haug

Along the banks of the River Enz in Pforzheim, Germany, sits Haug Rainbow Fountain, a mystical creature sprouting an ephemeral mist across the water. The bronze-cast sculpture has been realized by Veronika Sedlmair and Brynjar Sigurðarson as a mysterious hybrid between an Icelandic elf and a water spirit who carries the echoes of the folk tales whispered in the neighbouring Northern Black Forest. ‘In Iceland, where I come from, the rainbow is also a bridge between humans, elves, and hidden people. These kind of spirits that live beyond what we can see,’ Sigurðarson shares with designboom in an interview. Though at first Haug appears a little morbid — his hollow melting skull revealing a cluster of high-tech sensors — he sporadically captures rays of sunlight and transforms them into a dissipating, kaleidoscopic glow. ‘He looks a bit spooky, but he also has this ability to create such beauty. It’s a bit of a fun paradox,’ adds Sedlmair.

Haug Rainbow Fountain was unveiled at Ornamenta 2024, a contemporary art and design program running through the region’s city centers, spa towns, and valleys this summer. As curator Jules van den Langenberg tells us while we drive through the woodlands, ‘there is no white cube in the Black Forest,’ and as such, the public artwork finds itself at the hands of its context’s natural circumstances. While Haug is a permanent intervention, hibernating only during winters, the rest of the Ornamenta programming including the interactive installation, Water Hadde Dudde Da, will remain on view until 29th September, 2024.

all images by Sander van Wettum

ornamenta bridges the black forest’s communities & industries

Curated by Jules van den Langenberg, Willem Schenk, and Katharina Wahl, Ornamenta strives to connect the German Black Forest and its diverse communities and industrial practices through a series of public installations, multi-site exhibitions, and performances. Veronika Sedlmair and Brynjar Sigurðarson’s Haug Rainbow Fountain forms part of the exhibition, Bad Databrunn: On Bladders, Rainbows, and Less Screen Time, which activates various parts of the region, both indoors and outdoors. As the show serves as a means to lure people away from their screens at home and into the city, the work by the German-Icelandic artist duo invites people to enjoy a surreal transformation of the elements along the banks of the River Enz.

As Ornamenta casts a lens on the region’s industrial heritage, the enigmatic Haug Rainbow Fountain notably bridges cosmopolitan and agrarian lifestyles, developed over the course of three years in collaboration with experts in bronze manufacturing, physics, and more. Merging craft and technology, Sedlmair and Sigurðarson who have long explored the interrelation between myth and reality, teamed up with local family-owned company that have been prominent bronze producers in the region for generations. ‘We gave a new outlook for this bronze industry. Normally they produce static sculptures for the centers of cities, though in this case, we developed a whoe new vocabulary,’ Jules van den Langenberg tells us.

Veronika Sedlmair and Brynjar Sigurðarson present Haug Rainbow Fountain

the rainbow fountain lures visitors to the river enz

Following an initial trip in 2021 to Pforzheim — a young city destroyed by and rebuilt following the Second World War — the artists recall how they became drawn to the region’s skies, valleys, and rivers. The River Enz, they noticed, runs from West to East, much like the sun. ‘The sunlight really shines into the city through the riverbed from a deep, low angle, and that was something that we were quite charmed by,’ Brynjar Sigurðarson tells designboom. Haug’s transient fusion of light rays with water particles gave rise to the initial concept, which found an intersection with the studio’s previous explorations of atmospheric optics. ‘The rainbow is maybe the most famous atmospheric optic of all… So, the idea was, could we create a rainbow that’s somehow looming over the river?’

perched on the banks of the River Enz

Bad Databrunn’s overarching theme likewise stems from and nods to the region’s waters and Germany’s prevalent spa culture, embracing its associated connotations of replenishing the mind and body with water.‘In former times, anyone and everyone would have access to the spas and the water wells. But now, these initiatives are privatized and people are only able to indulge for a moment, never fully engaging with nature. And so in this theme we tried to search for new ways of digital detoxing,’ says Jules van den Langenberg.

‘For me, this work will live on the internet for most of its life simply because of its looks, yes, but if you take a bit more time, you start to also notice the dragonflies, the movements of the water, the shadows of the trees. As you stand on this bridge in anticipation of the rainbow, you get this kind of renewed lens of the landscape,’ he continues.

the artwork was unveiled at Ornamenta 2024