Exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde in connection with the museum's 25th anniversary exhibition ‘Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow’.
The Museum of Contemporary Art is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2016. To mark the occasion, five Danish artists have been invited to delve into the museum's collection and relate to the museum's past, present and future. The artists are: Hannah Heilmann, Kenneth A. Balfelt, Claus Haxholm, Rolf Nowotny and Olof Olsson.
For a number of years, I have used art to ‘develop situations in society’. I have used artistic methods and strategies to develop new methods in the development of e.g. urban spaces, urban development and conditions for the vulnerable and in vulnerable neighbourhoods.
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde is in a time where they want to redefine their role in the local community, to become a more relevant institution that shows relevance to citizens in relation to pressing issues. The museum wants to use their 25th anniversary exhibition to ‘enable the visitor to gain an understanding of contemporary art, the role of the museum and the contemporary artist in society’.
With my participation in the exhibition, I wanted to show how my art has contributed to developing issues in society and how I have conducted artistic research to develop more ethical, relevant, transparent and open user involvement to create greater quality.
My exhibition consisted of two parts. Firstly, I selected several works from the museum's collection that either give concrete indications of other ways of doing things or have the potential to make us think and act differently. It is such works and such thinking that I have used to develop relationships in my public art projects. Firstly, I have my own contributions to the exhibition.
My own contributions on user involvement consisted of three parts:
1) Two documentation videos about my team and my work around the development of ‘Enghave Minipark - Replacement of beer drinkers’ and ‘Development of Folkets Park’ in Copenhagen, focusing on the user involvement methods that were developed.
2) A publication with involvement methods. The publication is sold for DKK 70 in the museum bookshop.
3) In addition, I have organised two courses in involvement based on methods developed in the above-mentioned art and urban space projects. The courses were for both museum staff and professionals who work with or want to work with user involvement.
