Category: projects

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HOMAGE TO OLDER WOMEN BILLBOARD PROJECT, 2025

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HOMAGE TO OLDER WOMEN BILLBOARD PROJECT
COPENHAGEN 2025

 DOCUMENTATION:
The video presents a selection of the participating artists railboards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDcVb9iGkQ

Society is full of cultural narratives and expectations of what older women are, can do and should be. To counter this HOMAGE TO OLDER WOMEN invited 100 women artists from Scandinavia to express their personal view of older women and this phase of their lives. The individual works of art on railboards in stations in and around Copenhagen presented 100 visual statements that brought a broader and more nuanced image of older women into public space. The project paid tribute to the wrinkles, wisdom and life experience of older women to generate recognition and present alternative visions.

Idea and concept visual artist Hanne Lise Thomsen in collaboration with curator Lise Grüner Bertelsen.

The opening of HOMAGE TO OLDER WOMEN was on 1 March 2025 at Mads Nørgaard Copenhagen. The event included an exhibition of small-format images of all 100 platform billboards, and a panel discussion.

HOMAGE TO OLDER WOMEN was supported by:
The New Carlsberg Foundation, the Danish Arts Foundation, Beckett Foundation, the Politiken Foundation, Ernst Sune Fonden and Poul Johansen Fonden.

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DECLARATIONS OF LOVE FROM HARALDSGADE, 2023

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DECLARATIONS OF LOVE FROM THE HARALDSGADE NEIGHBOURHOOD 2023

In DECLARATIONS OF LOVE FROM THE HARALDSGADE NEIGHBOURHOOD visual artist Hanne Lise Thomsen turned blocks of flats in Copenhagen inside out, bringing portraits and stories of the people living inside into the outside world. On one wall at the end of a block she hung a 9 x 10 m banner with one of Fatima’s old family portraits from Syria. Fatima now lives in the flats, so her photo brings a memory of another time and culture into public space in Denmark. Large posters with the stories of 10 people of all ages who live here were also displayed on outdoor concrete stands in the neighbourhood.

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THE MARIA PROJECT PUBLICATION, 2022

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The good Heidi with the dog Ganja, who looks after me, is tattooed on the left arm. On the right arm is the devilish Heidi, who loves partying in the street, drugs and fast cars Format 7.70 x 5.38 m

The maria project - 2022

Publication

The publication is part of my contribution to The Maria Project curated by Matthias Borello. Based at Maria Church in the Vesterbro district of Copenhagen, the project aims to create social and ethical models for dialogue, gatherings and society at large by exploring the space provided and created by the church and visual arts.

The publication includes a series of narrative and visual representations of different locations of the church neighbourhood. These include a shelter for the homeless, a fix room for drug users, a centre for women sex workers, a local clinic for the homeless, and the church’s own drop-in centre and weekly soup kitchen.

I have been in close dialogue with the users and staff of each place in order to portray their lives, listening to the personal experiences and stories that form the core of the publication.

The book was made in close collaboration Rud Ellegaard, a police officer who has been on the beat in Vesterbro for 40 years. He contributed with a series of diary entries for the publication, which was co-edited by Lise Grüner Bertelsen.

In connection with the publication of Maria Project, I installed a banner 7.70 x 5.38 m on the H17 building by Heidi on the meat square.

The text on the banner reads: “The good Heidi with the dog Ganja, who looks after me, is tattooed on the left arm. On the right arm is the devilish Heidi, who loves partying in the street, drugs and fast cars”

Read more: https://www.folkekirken-vesterbro.dk/maria-projektet-hanne-lise-thomsen/

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projects

BILLBOARD ISTANBUL 2020

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BILLBOARD ISTANBUL, 2020

Billboard project

BILLBOARD ISTANBUL 2020 was a two-week long exhibition in the public space of Istanbul that brought together and exhibited 115 Turkish, Moroccan and Nordic contemporary female artists in Istanbul. The billboards were full of photographic images by the female artist – raising awareness and encouraging public debates on gender issues, as well as bringing contemporary art to a wider audience of all genders and ages.

BILLBOARD ISTANBUL 2020 provided a more prominent, public site for very different stories and images than the advertising that dominates the streets of many cities worldwide. The project gave women the opportunity to express themselves on their own terms, and made the city more open and creative city – for everyone. The aim was to build bridges between cultures and to challenge our ideas around urban space, gender and identity. The billboards were an important statement, making the work of women artists from Turkey, Morocco and Scandinavia visible.

The project was launched in collaboration with curator Lise Grüner Bertelsen and graphic designer Jeanne Betak.

Read more: billboardistanbul.org

Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZML4KDdtS0w

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projects

HANNE LISE THOMSEN PUBLICATION 2018

HANNE LISE THOMSEN PUBLICATION 2018

Hanne Lise Thomsen
Publication, 2018

The book Hanne Lise Thomsen offers an overview of Hanne Lise Thomsen’s public art works produced in numerous locations in Denmark and around the world over the last 20 years.

Drawing on the interventionist urban art that developed internationally during the 1980s, Hanne Lise Thomsen’s work takes inspiration from political protest movements and the experiments artists began making with new media. By inviting many contributors into her projects, working with local residents and professional photographers alike to articulate these hidden stories on the participants’ own terms, Hanne Lise Thomsen uses the photography of others much like a curator or film director, uncovering obscured histories and revealing them to the viewer in all their complexity.

As well as rich full colour images of Hanne Lise Thomsen’s projects, the book includes two essays about her work by the art historian Ditte Vilstrup Holm and professor of arts and cultural studies Mette Sandbye.

Language: English/Danish bilingual
160 pages
Softcover, stitched binding
Full colour images

Really Simple Syndication Press

https://www.rssprss.net/shop/p/hanne-lise-thomsen

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projects

PASSAGE, 2016

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PASSAGE, 2016

Visual Montage

In the form of a visual montage, presented a series of narrative and visual representations of refugees based on their own stories and living spaces. Around 75 posters told the stories of their experience of leaving their families, friends and homes to begin a new life in an unfamiliar part of the world. PASSAGE was located in the tunnel under Dronning Louise’s Bridge on Nørrebrogade. Here the tunnel itself and adjoining walls were used to display the montage extending 165m.

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INSIDE OUT ISTEGADE PUBLICATION 2016

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INSIDE OUT ISTEDGADE

Publication, 2016

Visual artist Hanne Lise Thomsen has researched and collected material for INSIDE OUT ISTEDGADE, by selecting and visiting 40 apartments in Istedgade. The publication contains image documentation of the video installation Inside Out, which was projected in Istedgade in September 2015 on the gables of the Gasworks Road school. As well as pictures and stories from Istedgade residents, shop owners and professional actors about life in and around the street.

The publication was created with the support of the Danish Arts Foundation and the City of Copenhagen’s grant to the City’s beautification and general good.

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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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news projects

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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