The installation Naturalis Brutalis is part of the exhibition Plots, Prints, Projections at the Venice Biennale 2018. The exhibition takes place in the greenhouse Serra dei Giardini and is the result of a collaboration between Swedish Wood, the Swedish Association of Architects, the Swedish Institute and Folkhem.

The context of the greenhouse with its tradition of exhibiting nature and the relation of the exhibition to the felling Swedish wood industry are two important references for the project.

Exhibition text:

The Naturalis Brutalis (currently with no common name in English nor Swedish) is a creature increasingly found in the forests of Sweden. Similar to rodents the Naturalis Brutalis has a brutal relationship with nature, but on rare occasions it shows an artistic interest. The Naturalis Brutalis and the plot of woodland exhibited in Serra dei Giardini were found in an evergreen forest outside of Luleå, Northern Sweden, in year 2015. The Naturalis Brutalis has frantically gnawed iconic pieces of architecture out of three pine trees (Pinus sylvestris).

In order to keep the Naturalis Brutalis settled, the inner walls of the freight box are mirror-clad to create the illusion of a vast pine forest.