CURATORIAL STATEMENT
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 definetively 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 it’s 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 Jacob 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.
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
