forgotten follies of sølyst

CONJECTURE was invited by the ‘Forgotten Follies of Sølyst’ , which were cast in a ruined state within the wooded grounds of Sølyst Castle. The  follies consisted of a series of oversized and dismembered classical architectural elements cast in white concrete. A collapsed colonnade caused visitors to stray from the castle’s manicured lawns into the surrounding woodland where they in turn stumbled upon the ‘Forgotten Follies of Sølyst’.

The giant flutings, ruined columns, emerging dome and hieroglyphic details that comprised the follies took inspiration from the dreamlike, eroticised architectural descriptions in Francesca Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Polyphili. Like Polyphilo, that book’s protagonist, visitors to the follies were invited to decipher the fragments that were left behind and build meanings into their gaps.

There are now no Forgotten Follies of Sølyst to stumble upon for the wanderer on Sølyst Castle’s grounds.  All that remains are imprints in the undergrowth and the occasional overlooked white flake on the forest floor. Only the empty shapes of the formworks from which they came remember them, placeholders of something else now lost.