:: Introduction

Mark Tholander is a visual artist, living and working in Copenhagen. He has previously shown his work at Kunsthal Aarhus (DK), Riga Performance Festival (LV), This Is Not a Church (KR), New Media Artspace (US), Saigon Experimental Film Festival (VN), Post Territory Ujeongguk (KR), Seattle Transmedia & Independent Film Festival (US), Beijing International Short Film Festival (CN) and Rencontres Internationales (FR/DE). He is represented in the permanent collection of SMK - Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark).

His practice is occupied with communities, challenging the traditional notions of identity, togetherness and belonging. Through performance, sculpture and video installation, he investigates how communities, relationships, and social structures serve as the scaffolding upon which we construct our worldviews. His practice examines togetherness by juxtapositioning the familiar and the alien, the collective and the individual, highlighting the blind spots of traditional communities and the possibility of forming other ways of being together.

:: Selected works

Onomatopoeia for a Hissing Kettle: Part One (2025)

Onomatopoeia for a Hissing Kettle: Part One is a filmed performance about the claustrophobia of emptiness, what comes after collapse, and the necessity of new communities when the world we know is turned upside down.

A group of beekeepers find themselves in a void while ritualistically carrying out their work. The bees themselves, however, are no longer present. Nature and all recognizable markers are absent, but live on through the beekeepers’ ritualistic memory. The beekeepers struggle to find a common foothold in this limbo, like ghosts reaching out for each other but constantly losing their bearings. Gradually, the void creeps in on them. They see things in the darkness that they could not see before, where the very absence becomes the embodiment of their mutual relationship.

The performance is part of a series about our disappearing world relationship and the broken communities we are a part of. Through the use of traditional mime techniques combined with elements from contemporary dance, the performance is an invitation to let the viewer be a co-creator of the narrative. Mime theatre is used conceptually to illuminate the social contracts we are surrounded by and what happens when we lose faith in them.

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Weary Chuckle #1-#2 (2024)

Weary Chuckle #2 (2024)
Chair, broches, 80 x 79 x 74 cm
On screen: Family Mattered, animation, 03:30 min, developed by the musician Faye Fadem (Trust Fund Ozu) for the performance The Wardrobe.

Weary Chuckle #1 (2024)
Beekeeper suit, copper bells, 50 x 120 cm

Sculptures (chair, brooches, beekeeper costume, copper bells)
Weary Chuckle #1 and #2 both acted as props for the performance The Wardrobe while being independent sculptural works. The sculptures thematized vulnerability and the barriers we construct around ourselves.

Weary Chuckle #2 consists of an armchair covered with a multitude of brooches: an everyday object, typically associated with relaxation and safety, transformed into a potentially dangerous surface. Our familiarity with brooches provides an immediate bodily response to remind us that the needle of a brooch, if not attached correctly, can unexpectedly penetrate the skin. This refers to normality as body horror: a discomfort that rises from the familiar.

Weary Chuckle #1 consists of a beekeeper costume covered in copper bells. The suit acts as a membrane that operates as a barrier, while at the same time drawing a parallel to the danger of beehives. The bell cluster spreads like a rash: a reference to eczema, which is a condition where the skin reacts against itself, from the inside out. A protective suit against an outside world that develops into a bodily phenomenon. When used as a prop in the performance, the suit becomes a sound instrument. As the performer moves, the bells create a cacophony of acoustic timbres. This transforms the visual metaphor of a rash into an auditory element, indicating that our inner turmoil can manifest bodily when the body is exposed to normative imprints.

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A fertile subject for offensive talk (2024)

Video installation. Exhibited in c4 projects, Copenhagen, Denmark. Curated by Rikke Ehlers Nilsson.

Statement from Mark Tholander:

“Last year, I had a job on a boat to make a living. I assisted the captain in mooring the boat, cleaning the deck and similar tasks. It was here that I first heard the story of the Sea Monk. This story became the starting point of the video installation in c4 projects. According to historical records, the Sea Monk was caught on the coast of Zealand in 1546. Historical records say that the fishermen thought they had pulled a monk with a fish body out of the sea. Some thought it was a priest from a “sea people” – a species of “merman”. In all likelihood, it was in fact a ten-armed octopus of a scale never seen before.

When the king at the time, Christian III, heard about it, he ordered that the “disgusting” creature should be buried as soon as possible, so that it would not incite offensive talk in public. In this way the priest from the sea was given an honorable burial. With this starting point, A fertile subject for offensive talk reflects the shadow sides of the public and how that which is different is considered dangerous.”

The exhibition is part of c4 project‘s exhibition program The Kinship Programme. The program takes its point of departure in the eco-feminist thinker Donna Haraway, focusing on the structural, political, poetic and critical potentials of a community.

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The Wardrobe (2024)

Performance. Premiered at Kunsthal Aarhus as a part of Ensembles and Monsters. Curated by Seolhui Lee.

The Wardrobe combines performance, mime, theater, and concert. The performance focused on togetherness, ranging from family to society. The family gathering is a personal experience that most people have an intimate relationship with - but at the same time the idea of the harmonious nuclear family is used politically as an ideal image of society. This creates a structural normality that excludes those who do not fit into the norm. In this way, our ideas about the community of the family are connected to the way we create communities in society. But what about the family that doesn‘t fit together? What about that and those who do not fit into society‘s normality? Following this, The Wardrobe works with the idea of community on multiple scales: from personal, everyday experiences to experiences of cohesion on a wider, societal level.

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We. They. There. (2016-ongoing)

A 3-channel video and 8-channel audio installation, exhibited in VEGA. The exhibition is a collaboration between Art Hub Copenhagen and VEGA. The installation is a reinterpretation of an animated film series in progress since 2016. The series is a collaboration with musicians, combined with a hybrid out-of-sync animation approach. Photo: Christian Brems.

A 3-channel video and 8-channel audio installation, exhibited in VEGA. The exhibition is a collaboration between Art Hub Copenhagen and VEGA. The installation is a reinterpretation of an animated film series in progress since 2016. The series is a collaboration with musicians, combined with a hybrid out-of-sync animation approach. Photo: Christian Brems.

2-channel video installation. Solo exhibition. Curated by Chunghyung Lee.
Installation view at This Is Not a Church, Seoul, South Korea.
My first solo exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, at the exhibition space This Is Not a Church. The exhibition space uses the premises of a former church, which formed a scenic framework for the installation.

2-channel video installation. Solo exhibition. Curated by Chunghyung Lee.
Installation view at This Is Not a Church, Seoul, South Korea.
My first solo exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, at the exhibition space This Is Not a Church. The exhibition space uses the premises of a former church, which formed a scenic framework for the installation.

Video- and sound installation. Ongoing project, initiated in 2016.

We. They. There. revolves around what is out-of-sync. The narrative work with the disruptive in societies, communities, families and identities. Diagonals that create disorientation, opening a space where we can rethink intersubjectivity, society and ontology. The fragmented storyline is driven by characters in limbo positions. They act as uniforms: a pathway between an empty set and a category. Their conversations are distant, but drives the disruptive forward. We. They. There. work on several planes simultaneously: in dishwashing, we find ontological conditions, in conversations, intersubjectivity is illuminated, and the act of waiting branches into several tales about the common condition.

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M A rk - Th ol an de r # :: Onomatopoeia for a Hissing Kettle: Part One :: Weary Chuckle:: The Wardrobe :: A Fertile Subject for Offensive Talk :: We. They. There. :: Piscine About / BioContact

M A rk - Th ol an de r #

:: Onomatopoeia for a Hissing Kettle: Part One
:: Weary Chuckle
:: The Wardrobe
:: A Fertile Subject for Offensive Talk
:: We. They. There.
:: Piscine

About / Bio
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