Author: idabeth

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PASSAGE, 2016

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PASSAGE, 2016

Visual Montage

PASSAGE was intended to be a comment on the ongoing debate about refugees coming to Denmark. A number of narrative representations of refugees and their individual stories emerged through the visual montage. The aim was to highlight what refugees look like, how different they are from one another, and how they nevertheless are like us.

75 posters told the stories of the refugees’ personal spaces, what it is like to leave your family, friends and belongings behind in order to begin a new life in an unfamiliar part of the world. The project focused on open and inclusive communication in public space, and was therefore located under Queen Louise’s Bridge on Nørrebrogade street. The tunnel as a passage and the neighbouring walls were included in the montage, which in this way covered an area of 165 meters. A perfect place to tell the story of people on the move.

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INSIDE OUT ISTEDGADE, 2015

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INSIDE OUT ISTEDGADE, 2015

A site-specific video installation

In all, 40 apartments on Istedgade street took part in INSIDE OUT ISTEDGADE. The idea was to have the many residents talk about life on Istedgade through individual meetings with each of them. In this way they contributed to a diverse but common visual and auditory narrative. Each meeting was documented in photography, film, and sound, and formed a continuous background and inspiration for the artistic interpretations.

The project was developed in urban space using various approaches, with a sound montage being played at the main railway station, in the space facing Reventlowsgade street, while images were projected onto a facade on Gasværksvej street (played in an 8-9 minute loop, shown for 3 days after nightfall). Furthermore, the project’s many images and stories were documented and collected in the publication Inside Out Istedgade. The project was initiated by the Danish Arts Foundation and Copenhagen Municipality in connection with the urban renewal of Istedgade street.

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BILLBOARD FESTIVAL CASABLANCA, 2015

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BILLBOARD FESTIVAL CASABLANCA, 2015

Billboard Project

BILLBOARD FESTIVAL CASABLANCA occupied 63 gigantic billboards (4 x 3 m) in the heart of the Moroccan metropolis. The project gave Nordic and Moroccan women artists an unusual platform, in which thousands of inhabitants saw the billboards every day and had their conventional ideas about city space, gender, and identity challenged.

The billboards gave women artists the opportunity to express themselves on their own terms in a project in North Africa, which sought to build bridges between different cultures. The hope was, to quote the closing dialogue of the film Casablanca, that the festival would mark “the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

Apart from making the visions of female visual artists visible, BILLBOARD FESTIVAL CASABLANCA also presented stories and images in central locations in the city, which were completely different from the adverts which usually dominate the streets in many of the world’s cities.

A comprehensive festival programme ran alongside the project, featuring artist talks, video screenings, performances and panel discussions in the Villa des Arts de Casablanca.

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INSIDE OUT 2400, 2012

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INSIDE OUT 2400, 2012

A site-specific video and sound installation

Møntmestervej street in Copenhagen is a street that borders the heavily trafficked Tomsgårdsvej street, which clearly marks the boundary between the city’s frenetic tempo and the more introvert life of the housing estate: a time warp on the periphery of a city.

Inside Out 2400 was realized in collaboration with the residents of Møntmestervej street, in the Copenhagen postal district 2400. Residents who represent a broad cross-section of the Danish population, both ethnically Danish families who have lived in on the housing estate for several generations, and so-called ‘new Danes’ who come from many different countries.

The idea was to turn these different, but often parallel, lives into a visible diversity. By temporarily transforming the housing estate on Møntmestervej, a social space was established which gave the residents the opportunity to interact with one another. Making the residents of the area visible in this way allowed their private stories to mirror each other, so creating a common visual narrative. The residents’ pictures were projected in the form of a video onto one of the street’s nine gables, and together with a series of sound montages, what was going on indoors was shown outdoors.

Several aspects were in play: a particular visual and auditory output, in which Inside Out 2400 turned the buildings inside out; and a social dimension, in which the residents turned themselves inside out.

Collaboration with K. Wellendorf

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WE ARE FROM HERE, 2012

WE ARE FROM HERE, 2012

Billboard project in Ramallah

Ramallah has 27,000 inhabitants, is located in the West Bank approximately 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, and is the home of the Palestinian Authority.

In 2012, the billboard project WE ARE FROM HERE (Ehna men hon) was shown in the streets of Ramallah. Five Palestinian visual artists, Lucia Ahmad, Rana Bishara, Asma Ghanem, Tanya Habjouqa and Omaya Salman, celebrated International Women’s Day (8 March) by presenting their personal and artistic proposals for an image of women in public space.

Billboards are very widespread in Ramallah and the majority of the city space is wallpapered with adverts. On the other hand, they hadn’t been used in an artistic context which in itself thematised the power and content of the advertisements. WE ARE FROM HERE (Ehna men hon) challenged the Palestinian stereotyping of gender roles, since women got the chance to express themselves in public space on entirely their own premises.

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WORKING CLASS HEROES, 2010

WORKING CLASS HEROES, 2010

Video Projection Damaskus

The image of President Al-Assad was present everywhere on the facades and billboards of Damascus. In order to establish an opposition to this one-sided impression, the idea of the project was to portray the street vendors of  Damascus and have them appear in a video loop which focused on their individuality. By incorporating buildings in Damascus, Working Class Heroes was visible to everyone and at the same time gave the place a spatial dimension.

The project was based on showing 50 different portraits of street vendors in Damascus, which were projected onto a number of facades in the city centre, close to the Citadel and the Al Hamidiyeh souk. The names of the portrayed were part of the video, and a labyrinthine story arose in interplay with the portraits, in which the street vendors of Damascus took the leading roles in a modern Arabian Nights.

Damascus is the capital city of Syria with a population of 5 million, and is thought to be the oldest city in the world. It is a multicultural melting pot with intensive street trading. The square next to the Al Hamidiyeh souk sees a lively traffic of pedestrians and was therefore the ideal choice for the video projection.

The project was brought to an end by the secret police.

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INSIDE OUT, 2009

INSIDE OUT, 2009

Site-specific slide projection

The private sphere met public space when pictures from photo albums were projected onto buildings in Abel Cathrines Gade and Viktoriagade streets.

The aim of the project was to make the residents of the quarter visible, and make their private photo archives visible to one another. Images streamed out of the windows of individual apartments on Abel Cathrines Gade and Viktoriagade onto the walls opposite. There were 50 projections in all, together with an inviting, luminous photographic installation. Several aspects were in play: a specific visual output, with which Inside Out turned the buildings inside out; but also a social aspect, in which the residents turned themselves inside out — which images did they chose to show, and how did people on Abel Cathrines Gade and Viktoriagade see themselves and the world in 2009?*

*INSIDE OUT was part of an Open Call project initiated by the Danish Arts Foundation’s Committee for Art in Public Space.

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A CORNER OF A KINGDOM, 2008

A CORNER OF A KINGDOM, 2008

Video Projection

Artjom, Salman, Nohadra and many other children, were born and raised in the Sandholmcamp. They’ve spent their childhood under circumstances, that we would never allow our own children to grow up under. An inhuman and indecent refugeepolicy hits the children hard.

For us to experience and get insight into the reality of the asylumchildren in the Sandholmcamp, the children were encouraged to photograph their daily lives with one time use cameras. A selection of the photographs were edited together to a filmmontage, and was shown as a moviespot on Copenhagen metrostations during the christmas week.

‘A corner of a Kingdom’ was projected up on the nine metrostations and was shown 2200 times a week.

Collaboration with Per Kragh Müller. ​

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OPEN AIR, 2006

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OPEN AIR, 2006

Projection

In the form of a visual Images of 50 refugees appeared after sunset, in the public space of six danish cities in november 2006. Refugees are people that have been persecuted in their homeland and therefore has found protection in another part of the world.

Approximatly 120.000 people have come to Denmark, as refugees, in the last 50 years. A fact which The Danish Refugee Council put focus on in relation to their 50th aniversary in november month.

The portraits were by the aid of a 17 meters tall crane projected onto buildings, resulting in pictures of 25 + 25 meter in size. The portraits had been taken by artist Hanne Lise Thomsen who was also the artistic director of the project.

Hanne Lise Thomsen says “Through photographic portraits of 50 refugees we highlighted the individual persons story. We wanted to show how refugees look, how different they are and how they still are similar to all of us’’. The images were paired with a short text by and about the individual refugees.

The projections were shown in Copenhagen, Esbjerg, Kolding, Odense, Ålborg and Århus.

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THE HOMELESS OF NEW YORK CITY…, 2005 ​

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THE HOMELESS OF NEW YORK CITY WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY HOLLIDAY, 2005 ​

Video Projection

Some people live in luxury, others have nothing at all — not even a home. The project The Homeless of New York City Wish You All a Happy Holiday was a comment on this social discrepancy, which is further thrown into relief in December. Using large outdoor slide projections (25 x 25 m), the project literally shed light on the people who live on the underside of society. 30 black and white portraits of homeless people were projected onto two walls at Broadway and Howard Street, and were accompanied by the text: The Homeless of New York City Wish You All a Happy Holiday. Doing the project in Manhattan seemed to be the obvious choice, since the contrast between people who live in penthouses and cardboard boxes is constantly felt as you move around the city.

Manhattan is a symbol of western wealth and consumer culture. In December a surfeit of fairy lights is illuminated everywhere, while on the city’s innumerable advertising hoardings various department stores and telecom companies wish everyone a very merry Christmas.

The project challenged the commercial Christmas message through its monumental portrait projections, and called to mind the fact that for many people in New York, neither Kashmir sweaters nor jewellery from Tiffany’s are top of the wish list, but quite simply a roof over their head. The project highlighted this almost absurd social inequality by drawing attention to people without homes, whom the project The Homeless of New York City Wish You All a Happy Holiday literally put a face to.