I work with socio-political context-related functional art. This means experimenting with how art, as ‘space’, platform, strategy, method and research, can be used to develop situations in (local) society. As an artist, and with my team, I involve myself in actual social contexts and initiate a ‘knowledge production’ that offers an alternative approach, with e.g. ethics and empathy, to other development methods we have in society.

​

I work both in the public space and in art institutions. In the public space, I develop urban spaces, physical/aesthetic solutions, communities, love and conflict resolution. Thematically, my practice is mainly about empathy. Over a number of years, I have developed special methods for evoking and strengthening compassion and empathy, including for vulnerable or ‘the other’ groups. As a rule, people I work with are invited into an ‘art space’ where professional frameworks and norms can be set aside for a while. I find that people are happy to accept this. It's a bit like going to a fancy dress party or drama rehearsal, where we can try and develop new sides of ourselves. I find that they feel a special sense of security in the framework I create, which allows us to develop something strong together. This framework is an ethical framework, a place where I demand integrity - from me and the others, something they are rarely allowed to have at work - a place where we spend time, time to create proper quality, presence and reflection, also often a lack. That's why I feel it's important that people get very serious about creating something that completely changes us and the conditions and frameworks we work with. The deconstruction. We go on a journey together and get to know each other well. Transform. Reshape. 

​

Trust is built and we are both produced. I enter the projects and collaborations with the requirement that I must also be produced and developed. I'm not there to help. We create something together and we both come up with something. We are used to not expecting much from, for example, the vulnerable, but I do this as a methodical move to ensure respect and that it is an equal platform, which Deleuze defines as ‘radical horizontality’. Here our differences stand out more clearly (than in a hierarchical relationship) and we can use each other's contributions. A new audience is formed that is not a passive observer, but a participant, contributor and, above all, a learner.

​

In my art practice, I have developed methods for involving socially disadvantaged people, involving users in the development of e.g. urban spaces, interview methods in connection with involvement that provide a better contribution to e.g. creative architectural design, methods for combining conflict resolution and user involvement by communicating wishes, dreams and prejudices between groups and individuals. 

​

I am interested in how my artistic research can have a structural impact. In pursuit of this, I have published a book (Artistically developed methods for user involvement), films about methods developed in projects (about almost all my major projects) and made three reports funded and published by the Ministry of Housing to pass on methods developed in my art and decoration projects. I regularly participate in follow-up and networking groups, for example on the development of Nordhavnen in Copenhagen, Bording, Køge Søndre Havn and Sydhavnen in Aarhus. The projects thus have the potential to generate several new layers. Art can have meaning and create tools. 

​

I have developed a work model that, in addition to form and content, has discourse, process and context. What is said and written about the work also becomes part of the perception of the work (discourse), the process and participation are crucial to its creation, and the social and political context must be understood in order to understand the work, and if possible reworked. For example, as in Folkets Park, where the young men (dangerous!), through being involved, suggested that families with children would be good for the safety of the park. Thus, families with children began to believe that it could be safe in the park. When I work in the off. When I work with architecture in the public space, I also work with content, for example, the fact that the users (beer drinkers) have been seen and heard and have contributed becomes part of others' understanding of Enghave Minipark.  

 

The social role and ambition of my art is to influence and develop concrete structures and discourses. It can therefore be seen as an operative and performative practice, with a programmatic aspect, an intention. The work must therefore not only be about or thematise, but also act - initiating events, situations and a tactile aesthetic proposal that explores how art can contribute to society with art as a method and professionalism. A professionalism that, including in my practice, can think across all disciplines, rethink them and use ethics and creativity to deconstruct situations and challenges and come up with other types of proposals. 

​

I invite into an ‘art space’ under my artistic leadership (a different kind of leadership!), where we work to free ourselves from our disciplines, prejudices, hierarchies, norms and facades - to create new solutions. As a ‘sketch’ between reality and utopia, where the audience goes from experiencing what is represented or participating in an open meeting, to being, in my practice, being co-creative participants. Participants are also invited to give something of themselves, to take an ethical stance and talk about values for the project's contribution to society, and in this way there is a reflexive space in the creation process - and not just when the work meets the viewer. In this way, my art goes beyond association and has, you could say, a more radical approach by involving the participants in an artistic way and making them co-responsible for the solutions. So the way of involving is both a work and an artistic strategy to create a work.

​

In my artistic practice I am also a shaper of ethics, openness, involvement, transparency and empathy,  in addition to the aesthetics. ‘The beauty of participation’. I create new images and counter-images of people's resources, values and ideas. Just as I create new self-images by enabling participants to see themselves in new roles and positions, with new ways of contributing.

With my projects, I have defined my own art practice and position in art and have works in the collections of the National Gallery of Denmark, Malmö Art Museum and KØS. My work is included in a number of art books, most recently ‘Berørt’ by Maria Kjær Themsen, 2020, and has been the subject of more than 50 dissertations and doctoral theses and has been taught in art history, architecture, urban development, performance design, pedagogy and social work programmes. 

​

You can read a short text about my artistic pratice at kunsten.nu: www.kunsten.nu​

​

See my work here