From 11 May - 23 June 2012
Curated by: Matthias H. Borello and Kenneth A. Balfelt
Read a report about the festival here
22 artists from Denmark and abroad in artistic dialogue with streets, empty storefronts and green spaces in one of Denmark's disadvantaged residential areas.
The festival opened on Friday 11 May, and before that the artists visited Tingbjerg several times to explore and engage with the area and create art projects for the neighbourhood. In November and January, the festival organised workshops in Tingbjerg, where the artists gained insight into the district as an architectural plan and social housing area from the 1950s, met residents and initiated local collaborations. This has resulted in art projects created specifically for Tingbjerg that interact with the neighbourhood's history, architecture, conflicts, initiatives, resources and everyday life. The artworks contain a social-local research dimension that gives a platform to those who are rarely heard in public, namely the residents of Tingbjerg. The artworks give the residents of Tingbjerg a space for reflection and expression - and the rest of us an opportunity to go on a reflective visit.
‘The idea is to let a large group of professional artists explore Tingbjerg and develop art projects that engage in dialogue with the residents out here and challenge various prejudices about Tingbjerg. We use the name VISIT TINGBJERG because we believe that a large part of the misconceptions about Tingbjerg are based on the fact that many people have never been to Tingbjerg and have been fed negative stories about the area in the press,’ explains curator Matthias Hvass Borello.
Tingbjerg is secluded between marshland and motorway on the outskirts of Copenhagen with only one road in and out of the area. At the same time, the neighbourhood is also exposed to a mental distance by virtue of ghetto lists, stereotypes and negative publicity with gang conflicts, car burnings, assaults and vandalism that have long been a regular part of the press coverage. This double distance is the artistic driving force behind the festival. The festival and the artists transcend the physical distance and go on a very concrete visit, seeking new statements, new encounters, new conversations and new images through open processes and creative expression in interaction with the local community. This is art at local eye level in a corner of Copenhagen that rarely hosts contemporary art.
With values such as honesty, presence, curiosity and openness, VISIT TINGBJERG is a model for how we can challenge the stereotypes surrounding disadvantaged neighbourhoods in general through the exploratory, experimental and engaging practice of art. The socially orientated art projects in Tingbjerg are formulated as sculpture, performance, installation, video, workshop - from fleeting interventions to more permanent statements.
Tingbjerg - a history full of conflict
Tingbjerg was designed by the Danish architect Steen Eiler Rasmussen in the 1950s as an extremely ambitious proposal for a social housing area, a model town based on the British ‘garden city’ and a focus on people and daily well-being with institutions from cradle to grave, one of Denmark's first playgrounds (Skramleren), local TV (TV-Tingbjerg, 1984-2009), all-day school, church, swimming and sports centre, nursing home, youth clubs, etc. This ideal has not characterised the image of Tingbjerg, and to this day Tingbjerg is known as a ‘ghetto’. But as early as 1975, Steen Eiler Rasmussen himself wrote
‘The spotlight has always been on Tingbjerg, so if the slightest thing happened, the newspapers were there immediately and didn't write about theft in this street or that street, but instead called it a theft ‘in Tingbjerg’. Nine thousand people now live there, so things do happen. But by localising many unfortunate events to this area, it inevitably gets a bad word on it.’
Participating artists: Camilla Berner, Charlotte Haslund-Christensen, Det 4. Kontor (Bonnie Fortune and Sophia Seitz-Rasmussen, US/DK), Frans Jacobi & Claus Handberg, Gåafstand, HuskMitNavn, Jakob Jakobsen, Jes Brinch, Kathrin Böhm (DE), Kerstin Bergendal & Vladimir Tomic (BIH/DK), Kim Young Kilde, Maj Horn, Marianne Jørgensen, Morten Dysgaard, Parfyme (DK/US), Søren Thilo Funder, Temporary Services (US), Thorbjørn Reuter Christiansen, Ultra Grøn, Wiebke Grösch & Frank Metzger (DE), Wooloo, YNKB
Read more at www.visittingbjerg.dk
VISIT TINGBJERG is supported by the City of Copenhagen, the Tingbjerg Area Secretariat, the Danish Arts Council's Visual Arts Committee and Brønshøj-Husum Local Committee.