TROLLS: SAVE THE HUMANS is a traveling exhibition I have created in collaboration with Imagine Exhibitions.
The exhibition features six young trolls who have noticed that the “small people” – which is what the trolls call the humans – are disconnected from nature and have started harming the planet! Through activism, the goal of the tribe is to help the humans rediscover nature and inspire them to be good stewards of earth. The story of Save the Humans is also included in the exhibition catalog and it is the second chapter of the fairytale Trail of a Thousand Trolls. The first chapter of the fairytale can be found in the book Trail of a 1000 Trolls – The Trolliefolkyfest.
"Every two-hundred-and-eleventh year, all the
trolls from all over the world meet at a big gathering
in a secret place. Some call this gathering the great
“Trolliefolkyfest,” but it’s really not that festive.
Two hundred and eleven years might sound like a
lot to little humans, but to a giant troll, it feels like
a single summer. At this gathering, the trolls sit
around a fire and talk about the humans. The trolls
know that the humans are good beings at heart and
mean no harm, but time and time again throughout
history, the humans have emptied rivers, cut down
forests, and hollowed out the mountains. Choices
that have put the humans themselves in danger but
also the trolls, the animals, and the plants that all
live and breathe in the world we share.
It’s exactly two hundred and eleven years
since the last troll gathering, but something is
certainly different at this one. As they sit around
the fire talking, anyone listening could hear that
the giants believe that the humans have stopped
listening to nature, stopped understanding,
stopped caring altogether. The trolls are
furiously yelling at each other, and, to be frank,
it’s not a place you would want to be.
The old troll, Bo, who has walked all the way
across the snowy mountains, rises from his
stone and shouts, ´Let’s eat all the humans, and
solve this problem once and for all!´"