“Unfinished # 11, 10, 12”, pencil on paper,29 x 42 cm, 2015.

Text:

Hun gik gennem parken mod museet. Da hun var fremme satte hun sig ned på en bænk. Foran sig opdagede hun projektørerne, som oplyste museet om natten. Hun forestillede sig, at man blev blændet, når de blev tændt og besluttede sig for at vente på, at det skete. Til sidst var det helt mørkt og hun forstod, at lysene ikke ville blive tændt. Det fik mørket til at føles anderledes, mindre kompakt og med flere konturer. Så vendte hun sig om og opdagede, at museet faktisk var oplyst, bare af andre projektører. Hun rejste sig og gik uden at være skuffet. Faktisk følte hun en tilfredsstillelse over, at det ikke blev, som hun havde forventet. Hun havde ønsket at et øjebliks blindhed kunne få billeder i hendes hukommelse til at forsvinde. Men i stedet opdagede hun, at mørket absorberede dem lige så godt.

She walked through the park towards the museum. When she got there she sat down on a bench. In front of her she discovered the projectors that lit up the museum at night. She imagined that you would be blinded when they were turned on and decided to wait for it to happen. Finally it was completely dark and she realized that the lights would not be turned on. It made the darkness feel different, less compact and with more contours. Then she turned around and realized that the museum actually was lit up, but only by other projectors. She raised herself from the bench and left without being disappointed. Instead she felt a satisfaction over the fact that it had not turned out as she had expected. She had wished that the flash of blindness could make images in her memory disappear. But instead she came to see that the darkness submerged them just as well.

Installation view ”Honeysuckle I – IV (after William Morris)”, 2014, ”100 x Spring”, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art.

”The Lighthouse”, drawings and texts on table, 2014.

”The Lighthouse”:

What she remembers most from her time on the island was when she bicycled down to the lighthouse. The dirt road that leads there is surrounded by fields, and she also remembers an impressive walnut tree that was growing in the courtyard of an old farm long the way. When she reached the lighthouse she never stayed there for long. But one warm day in August she took off her clothes and went bathing. One comes to the island by a ferry and when one gets off in the wintertime it is like walking into the darkness. When she thought of rainy, windy winter evenings it occurred to her that she had never seen the lighthouse at night. She also knew that she never would but she liked imagining it.

Quote from W. G. Sebald, ”Austerlitz”:

”On that summer night, said Austerlitz, we sat high above the estuary of the Mawddach in our hollow in the hills until daybreak, watching the moths fly to us, perhaps some ten thousands of them by Alphonso’s estimate. The trails of light which they seemed to leave behind them in all kinds of curlicues and streamers and spirals, and which Gerald in particular admired, did not really exist, explained Alphonso, but were merely phantom traces created by the sluggish reaction of the human eye, appearing to see a certain afterglow in the place from which the insect itself, shining for only the fraction of a second in the lamplight, had already gone.”

From left: “Summer after Monika”, DVD 5:32 min., 2007. 8 sketches for walldrawings, “Summer after Monika, act I – VIII”, watercolour on paper, 28 x 40 cm, 2007 – 2013.

“Defence Mechanisms”, 10 pencildrawings on paper, 29 x 42 cm, 2013.

Location for the sound piece “Hidingplaces” in Øregårdsparken.

English translation below:

HIDING PLACES

He lowered his head and crawled under the table. After a while his neck started hurting and he was forced to lie on one side. He lay perfectly still and fell asleep.

She crawled under the bed. From there she could see feet walking past and then stopping. When the sound of footsteps disappeared from the room, she moved closer to the wall, feeling out of breath.

She squeezed herself in between the sofa and the desk. She had to lower her head and pull her feet back so as not to be seem. It felt very uncomfortable and after a while she started to panic.

She sneaked behind the kitchen door, closing it so that it would be more difficult to be seen. Time and again she heard someone go past without noticing her. Her pulse beat more rapidly whenever there was someone moving around in the room.

He hid himself behind the curtain in the hall. His feet stuck out and he tried making himself as flat as possible so as not to be noticed. He held his breath but in the end he sighed deeply and hoped this would reveal his presence.

She opened the cupboard door and crept in amongst the clothes, closing the door behind her. It was reopened several times without her being discovered. As the footsteps disappeared out of the room, she dreaded the thought of having to remain there for very much longer.