I make performances and sculptures as well as painted and photographic works on paper and combine them in site-specific installations and scenografies. My work deals with language, belief systems and habits of thought – the impossibility of experiencing purely, since all our sensory impressions are interpretations of that, which impresses itself on us. But instead of rejecting these impressions and their linguistic expressions as false I consider them natural phenomena in themselves. Ephemeral poetry technologies. Vibrant communicational prostheses.
Lately I have worked with spoken word as well as elements of Danish and British Sign Language in my performances. There are around 300 sign languages in use around the world today that have developed naturally, through creolisation and occasionally through language planning.
I'm interested in the relation between language and movement, between the ability to move and the creation of self. I look for the shifts and differences that make holes in our understandings of things in order to approach an alternative form of knowledge production.
Also, things or objects are interesting to me, because they have a different understanding of self – they fall apart, dissolve and willingly merge with each other to create new things. It's like they know – there is no such thing as a surface, only the outermost internals.
As a part of my practice I invite people to meet and talk with me, one on one or in smaller groups, in my exhibitions. I find that conversation has a transformative potential and meeting new people in this way produces new insights, ideas, connections.
Some technical details in summary: In 2014 I graduated from the Jutland Art Academy in Aarhus (DK) and I now live and work in Copenhagen (DK). Recently my work has been shown at Den Frie Centre for Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, Skovsnogen Deep Forest Art Land in Kibæk (DK) and Piscine in Aarhus. I have been an artist in residence at the Danish Institutes in Rome and Athens, at Gamlí Skolí in Iceland and aboard The Arctic Circle Expedition that sailed around Svalbard in 2015.
'High hanging senses brush the world, don't throw away the sweepings'
Performance, 2017. Photo: Julie Stavad
