Piscine
Piscine was an artist group that I was a member of from 2015 to 2020, after which the group went on hiatus.
Previous members include Michael Roloff (2015 – 2016), Mikkeline Daa Natorp (2015 – 2016), Jens Settergren (2016 – 2020), Ida Sønder Thorhauge (2016 – 2018) and Anna Ørberg (2019 – 2020).
Press
(2018) Be a Pattern for the World: a conversation between Piscine and Bergman & Salinas
(2016) Piscine: Fra Passé til Parasit
(2016) Adfærdskodeks for en kunstudstilling
(2016) Piscine som flagskib for et nyt kunstmiljø i Aarhus?
(2016) Udstillingsplatformen Piscine indgår nyt samarbejde med Kunsthal Aarhus
(2016) Hjemløse kunstnere får tag over hovedet
(2015) Piscine – et friskt pust til den aarhusianske kunstscene
:: Selected collaborative works (Piscine group)
Leviathan (2019)
Leviathan was an exhibition taking place at various locations in Aarhus city centre: Aarhus Police Station, The Botanical Garden, Radisson Blu Hotel, Scandinavian Center, Lille Torv and Kunsthal Aarhus. The artistic interventions explored the relation between the public and the private, subjectivity and mass, the collective imaginary and behavioral patterns in our society. The works challenged codes and laws inscribed in our surroundings, critically processing and experimenting with the concepts of society, culture, nature and body.
Installation views: https://piscine.dk/2019-leviathan/
Performance program: https://piscine.dk/leviathan-performances/
Be a Pattern for the World (2018)
Installation. Video, banners and clothing collection. Variable sizes.
1st presentation at Alt_Cph18, Copenhagen, Denmark. Curated by Esben Weile Kjær and Anna Weile Kjær.
2nd presentation at Institite for New Connotative Action, Portland, Oregon, USA. Curated by Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas.
3rd presentation at The Poor Farm, Wisconsin, USA. Curated by Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas.
See installation views (Copenhagen, Portland and Wisconsin) here: https://piscine.dk/be-a-pattern-for-the-world/
Created as part of the Piscine artist group (then Ida Thorhauge, Jens Settergren and myself) in collaboration with the Portland-based artist duo Aeron Bergman & Alejandra Salinas. The work dealt with codes of conduct and social normalization through films, banners and a clothing collection.
Be a Pattern for the World circulates around the concept of the chameleon. The chameleon as an abstract machine: “The chameleon, maybe. It hovers, as a turbine. An object can be monitored better by the turbine. These days anything can be imitated.” The chameleon most of all stands for shape-shifting and adaptability. Adapting patterns of a given environment, while at the same time creating new patterns in the given space. The ability of changing one’s appearance as a response to one’s surroundings. What can be seen and what cannot; blending in and standing out; becoming distinct while also becoming part of the given space. The chameleon is the abstract machine which initiates a production of subjectivity in the relation between the individual and the surroundings, the figure and the background, the shape and the pattern, as well as the singular and the univocal.
Read a conversation between Piscine, Aeron Bergman & Alejandra Salinas about the project at IDoArt here: https://www.idoart.dk/blog/be-a-pattern-for-the-world.
The Conference (2016)
Group exhibition. Kunsthal Aarhus.
LIFE SPORT (GR) ∙ Richard Petrus (SE) ∙ Viktoria Wendel Skousen (DK) ∙ Adam Cruces (US/CH) ∙ Piscine (Mikkeline Daa Natorp, Michael Roloff, Jens Settergren, Mark Tholander & Ida Thorhauge) (DK) ∙ Søren Thilo Funder (DK) ∙ Martin Kogi (DK) ∙ Min Yoon (ROK) ∙ Sidsel Meineche Hansen (DK/UK) ∙ Maria Meinild (SE) ∙ Louise Haugaard Jørgensen (DK) ∙ Christine Overvad (DK)
The Conference is a framework for the discussion of business affairs, manipulation strategies and future scenarios. The Conference presents a range of attitudes towards the production of images, value, escapism and contemporary mythologies. Utilizing gestures from the conference format, The Conference exhibits an environment oscillating between the enchanting and the disturbing, between desire and despair.
Taking numerous currents, events and notions into account, The Conference lays down a novel artistic and theoretical framework for interrogating our relationship to the daily radiation of politics and power structures that prey on our very existence. It proposes an interrelated vortex of themes, spanning all the way from depicting chemical compounds of various psychopharmaceuticals to presenting a special edition of ―rebranded‖ sweatpants for sale, accompanied by a promotional video, whose juxtaposition makes it unclear whether one perceives an artwork, an activist project or a business model.
While to some extend playful and humorous, The Conference also stresses the importance of addressing ethical issues, and thinking beyond one’s own values and beliefs, to question accepted assumptions about our relationship to individual and societal identity production, commodification processes, power structures, the system of objects etc.
Read review at Kunsten.nu here:
Kunsten.nu