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A selection of twelve video pieces made
by Scandinavian artists
Thursday,
June 8
Admission: $5
Showtimes: 7:30 and 10pm
reservations
are recommended
Through works by Bodil Furu (N), Mariken Kramer (N), Ane Lan (N),
Peter Larsson (S), Kjersti Solberg Monsen (N), Jakob Nielsen (DK),
Lars Nilsson (S), Sixten Therkildsen (DK), Jakob Tækker
(DK), Kristin Tårnesvik (N) and Arne Vinnem (N) we will
meet different characters, both real and fictional. Taking part
in their dreams, hopes and nostalgia through documentaries, fiction
and animation.
A selection of twelve video pieces made by Scandinavian artists
are chosen for the screening "Individual Communities"
to present a view on what it is like to live in a vast region
with scattered population. The difference in population per square
kilometer is 24 in Scandinavia to 25850 in New York City. The
difference is extreme, and will definitively put the works in
perspective, and this knowledge is instrumental in portraying
the Scandinavian region as something completely different, something
exotic, to the New York City dweller. Although the curatorial
take is not to play around with the notion of recreating the self
as the Other. The videos are honest accounts of twelve individuals’
experiences of coming from and living in a region which might
seem distant to the audience in some instances, shifting to be
painfully recognizable in the next.
The term Scandinavia has its roots in the 19th Century. At the
height of the nationalist era many people worked persistently
to create one nation state, Scandinavia, consisting of the three
countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden. This perseverance did not
result in one country, but rather a region made up of closely
connected nation states with many cultural, economic and linguistic
similarities as well as similar societal developments, even though
there has been big differences both in war and peace times. Opposite
policies during the World Wars, the Cold War and towards membership
in international organizations, maybe in particular the European
Union, have shaped three similar yet different countries with
their own characteristics.
The screening starts with Danish Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen’s
Code Breaking, visualizing the famous score from the
film Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg,
continuing with Danish Jakob Nielsen’s Traffic.
It might seem banal or strange to show both Code Breaking
and Jakob Nielsen’s Ercan and Traffic
and claim it has something to do with the Scandinavian society.
But as a reflection of a homogeneous society, only recently getting
increasingly heterogeneous, they take on lives of their own. Seeing
it together with the animation of Peter Larsson,
The man who got nowhere, makes it even more light hearted. Notice
that the people of the community portrayed by Larsson only use
the park communally when invited by the park services and the
municipality. The communal activity has a long history in Scandinavia,
and the focus has traditionally been on activities that makes
everyone physically strong. The three countries has a proud history
of athletes fostered through a system that cheers voluntary work
and sports. Kjersti Solberg Monsen revisits her
time as a gymnast in TURN again.
The individual and the society at large are closely connected
in all the three countries, but some individuals actually step
up to try to change the world around them, like the two women
in Bodil Furu's My ambience or the collective
Kokokaka in Lars Nilsson’s video Talent
Community - Interview With Kokokaka. The difference in attitude
towards the EU is visited in Ane Lan's "Europa",
who’s Norwegian perspective; being the only Scandinavian
country not being a member, sheds light on societal differences
between the three countries. The struggle between individuality
and conformism is visited not only by Lan, Nielsen and Larsson,
but also Mariken Kramer. In her One of the
Lads two boys struggle to create a unity by excluding the
third, and in Arne Vinnem's collection of Men
Without Qualities we see individuals who by their lack of
qualities create an invisible union.
Just as Kramer looks back to childhood to find her images, Sixten
Therkildsen gives us a short glance at his own childhood
through an old school photo in At a Distance. As a further
reflection of the unity between the Scandinavians Danish Therkildsen
invites us across the border from Sweden to Finland, where he
tries to return a book at the library. So even though Scandinavians
are connected through culture, economy and language we have an
ever present knowledge of and longing for something else, something
besides our neighbours who we can understand quite easily, as
we can see in Kristin Tårnesvik Suomi
Dancing. Jakob Tækker's Emotional
Landscape is the last piece screened in "Individual
Communities" and offers an ending questioning who we all
are.
curated by Anne Szefer Karlsen, May 2006, Bergen, Norway.
Artists' weblinks
Peter
Larsson
Bodil
Furu
Kjersti
Solberg Monsen
Lars
Nilsson
Ane
Lan
Arne
Vinnem
Sixten
Therkildsen
Kristin
Tårnesvik
Jakob
Tækker
Individual Communities
Part 1 (48 minutes)
Ditte Lyngkær Pedersen (DK) - Code
Breaking, 50'', 2004
Jakob Nielsen (DK) – Traffic,
1’ 24’’, 2005
Arne Vinnem (N) – Men Without Qualities;
Eirik, 28 years, Clerk, 2’ 40’’, 2006
Bodil Furu (N) – My ambience, 33’,
2005
Jakob Nielsen (DK) –Ercan, 1’ 45’’,
2005
Mariken Kramer (N) – One of the Lads, 1’
30 ‘’, 2004
Arne Vinnem (N) – Men Without Qualities;
Einride, 32 years, Musician, 2’ 30’’, 2006
Peter Larsson (S) – The man who got nowhere,
3’ 6’’, 2005
Part 2 (55 minutes)
Kjersti Solberg Monsen (N) –TURN again,
4’ 30’’, 2006
Arne Vinnem (N) – Men Without Qualities;
Daniel, 26 years, Bartender, 2’ 15’’, 2006
Lars Nilsson (S) - Talent Community - Interview
With Kokokaka, 19‘, 2005
Ane Lan (N) – Europa, 4’,
2004
Arne Vinnem (N) – Men Without Qualities;
Sverre, 29 years, Student, 5’, 2006
Kristin Tårnesvik (N) – Suomi
Dancing, 3’, 2004
Sixten Therkildsen (DK) – Left to my
own Devices, 4’, 1999
Sixten Therkildsen (DK) – At a Distance,
25’’, 2000
Jakob Tækker (DK) – Emotional
Landscapes, 11’, 2005
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