WAUWATOSA, Wis. — World-renowned Danish recycling artist Thomas Dambo creates larger-than-life trolls from trash and hides them in woods around the world. Now he’s bringing his brilliance to Wauwatosa.
Dambo’s first creation is on the island of Culebra in Puerto Rico. He built “Hector the Protector” in 2014.
His latest creation is going up right now in Tosa’s new Firefly Grove Park. It’s Troll #158 for Dambo. This troll’s name is Mama Rosa!
“I’m a rapper. I used to rap. So it should rhyme with Wauwatosa, right?”
Wisconsin’s Midday News invited Dambo to the 620 WTMJ studio to discuss his art, his message, and his hopes for the new Tosa troll. He says he came up with the vision for Mama Rosa when the city invited him to town last year.
“I went to, basically, the bone yard of Wauwatosa. The city has an outdoor storage facility where they keep things like cobblestones, a bus stop, and old signs. They also keep all the old city light fixtures from the Main Street of Wauwatosa,” Dambo explained.
The storage facility also houses trees from across Tosa that either come down in storms or fall due to disease or rot.
“The city goes out, then takes those trees, and brings them back to the storage facility. Then they wood chip them and they become compost,” the artist said.
Dambo stood there among the weathered signs, the old streetlights, and the damaged trees and ideas started swirling in his mind. He’s building the troll’s body out of the big trees and creating flowers from the streetlights.
“The troll is like walking and picking a bouquet of daisies, but instead of daisies, it is the old light fixtures from the street that now have been repurposed and installed on the path through the whole park,” Dambo revealed.
He’s using 25-30 of those old streetlights.
“There’s a big bouquet in the hand of the troll, and it’s standing with a single (flower) in its other hand and smelling it with its eyes closed,” the artist explained.
Every year four million people travel to see Dambo’s sculptures around the world. The first chance for the public to see the giant new troll in Wauwatosa is Wednesday, May 28th. There’s a community celebration for the opening of Firefly Grove Park from 4-6PM.
You can hear the rest of Dambo’s conversation with Wisconsin’s Midday News on our podcast. He reveals the quirky reason he started building the trolls, he also chats about the goal of his art, and he even shares a poem he wrote in honor of Mama Rosa.
