Archive
Voices in the Shadow of Monuments at Going Public by C4 projects
See the event for more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/748429566459126/748429573125792/
Voices in the Shadow of Monuments at
The Power of Mapping
The Power of Mapping
22. of May 2022
Voices in the Shadow of Monuments participated in the Power of Mapping seminar, which was a gathering for critical mapping methods and their radical potential. The seminar was organized by Rendering the State and took place in Folkets Hus with talks, workshops and presentations by artists, researchers and activists working critically with mapping practices.
See the event for more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/1650640838620083/?ref=newsfeed
See the event for more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/1650640838620083/?ref=newsfeed
Voices at the Shadow of Monuments at Copenhagen Light Festival
10., 17. and 24. of February 2022
The initial version of Voices in the Shadow of Monuments was made in the winter of 2022 for Copenhagen Light Festival as an audio walk accompanied by visual projections on the building where the women's prison used to be at Christianhavns Torv and at the equestrian statue at Kongens Nytorv. The visuals developed by Barly Tshibanda would create a frame for the walk. The walks were accompanied by an artist talk and the film program Whose Gold is This? at Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Video from the artist talk (Charlottenborg 22. February 2022)
As part of Voices in the Shadows of Monuments, we were honored to host an artists’ conversation with the artists Bernard Akoi-Jackson, La Vaughn Belle, Jupiter J. Child, Julie Edel Hardenberg, Oceana James, Sabitha Söderholm, who have all contributed with sound and voice pieces to the audio-visual guide. Departing from the artists sharing their individual practices, the talk evolved around developing artistic methods for intervening in memorialization and historical legacies of colonialism today. Aiming at fostering collaboration and conversations between different geographies and experiences, the talk addresses some of the questions that arose during the creative process.
Whose Gold is This?
Film program at Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Film program at Kunsthal Charlottenborg
1. February – 13. Marts 2022
Still from performance A_GOLDEN[R]AGE…(?) by Bernard Akoi-Jackson. Photo: Bernard Akoi-Jackson & Elisabetta Agyeiwa
La Vaughn Belle, Bernard Akoi-Jackson,Linda Lamignan, Julie Edel Hardenberg & Tabita Rezaire
Borrowing its title from Hugh Masekela’s seminal song “Gold”, that provides the underlying soundtrack for artist Bernard Akoi-Jackson’s performance “A_GOLDEN[R]AGE…(?)”, we ask this question in relation to the colonial legacies inscribed in the built environment and the monuments in Copenhagen.
Gathering the work of artists who work across geographies, the video program presents a selection of video essays and documentation of performances that dig into the material traces of colonialism and its reverberations today: with forced displacement, deportation of people, racism, violations of Indigenous rights, removal of cultural heritage, extraction, land-grabbing and destruction of biodiversity as some of the most tangible effects.
By deploying situated, artistic strategies, that attune to the lower frequencies and the willfully forgotten histories in the cultural archive of colonialism, the artists find new ways to reflect on the continuities of colonialism in the present:
In the video essay “In the Place of Shadows”, La Vaughn Belle employs critical fabulation to wonder about Alberta Viola Roberts and Victor Cornelius, who were taken as children from the Danish West Indies to be displayed in the 1905 colonial exhibition at Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, in an attempt to create a space of care and regard for the memories of the children’s early life in St. Croix.
Covered in gold and pseudo-royal regalia, Bernard Akoi-Jackson’s mythical character in the performance A_GOLDEN[R]AGE…(?) saunters through some ceremonial streets of Amsterdam, with an entourage clad in lime green safety jackets. The route that he takes is the very same one that was taken by the Dutch Royal Golden Carriage (De Gouden Koets) which has in recent years come under a great deal of criticism due to the grave colonial history it represents. The walk is a composite part of the work that Akoi-Jackson contributed to the Gouden Koets exhibition in the Amsterdam Museum from 18th June 2021 to 27th February 2022.
Linda Lamignan’s video work proposes a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and to the planet, while exploring the linked histories of extraction and mining of crude oil and other minerals and products between Gabon, Nigeria and Norway.
In a series of video landscapes from Nuuk, Greenland, Julie Edel Hardenberg problematizes the unequal power structures that exist between Greenland and Denmark. With roots in both cultures, Edel Hardenberg remaps the economic and social dependencies that exist between the two countries from within.
Tabita Rezaire’s video installation Deep Down Tidal enquiries into the intricate cosmological, spiritual, political and technological entangled narratives sprung from water as an interface to understand the legacies of colonialism.
Together the artists' works summon different kinds of knowledges to envision futures different from the present.
Program:
La Vaughn Belle: In the Place of Shadows, 2021 (7:00 min.)
Bernard Akoi-Jackson:A_GOLDEN[R]AGE...(?), 2021 (4:52 min.)
Linda Lamignan: Between our Bodies and the Breathing Earth Pt.1, 2020 (10:37 min.)
Julie Edel Hardenberg: My First Coin, 2022 (13:00 min.)
Tabita Rezaire: Deep Down Tidal, 2017 (18:44 min.)
Borrowing its title from Hugh Masekela’s seminal song “Gold”, that provides the underlying soundtrack for artist Bernard Akoi-Jackson’s performance “A_GOLDEN[R]AGE…(?)”, we ask this question in relation to the colonial legacies inscribed in the built environment and the monuments in Copenhagen.
Gathering the work of artists who work across geographies, the video program presents a selection of video essays and documentation of performances that dig into the material traces of colonialism and its reverberations today: with forced displacement, deportation of people, racism, violations of Indigenous rights, removal of cultural heritage, extraction, land-grabbing and destruction of biodiversity as some of the most tangible effects.
By deploying situated, artistic strategies, that attune to the lower frequencies and the willfully forgotten histories in the cultural archive of colonialism, the artists find new ways to reflect on the continuities of colonialism in the present:
In the video essay “In the Place of Shadows”, La Vaughn Belle employs critical fabulation to wonder about Alberta Viola Roberts and Victor Cornelius, who were taken as children from the Danish West Indies to be displayed in the 1905 colonial exhibition at Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, in an attempt to create a space of care and regard for the memories of the children’s early life in St. Croix.
Covered in gold and pseudo-royal regalia, Bernard Akoi-Jackson’s mythical character in the performance A_GOLDEN[R]AGE…(?) saunters through some ceremonial streets of Amsterdam, with an entourage clad in lime green safety jackets. The route that he takes is the very same one that was taken by the Dutch Royal Golden Carriage (De Gouden Koets) which has in recent years come under a great deal of criticism due to the grave colonial history it represents. The walk is a composite part of the work that Akoi-Jackson contributed to the Gouden Koets exhibition in the Amsterdam Museum from 18th June 2021 to 27th February 2022.
Linda Lamignan’s video work proposes a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and to the planet, while exploring the linked histories of extraction and mining of crude oil and other minerals and products between Gabon, Nigeria and Norway.
In a series of video landscapes from Nuuk, Greenland, Julie Edel Hardenberg problematizes the unequal power structures that exist between Greenland and Denmark. With roots in both cultures, Edel Hardenberg remaps the economic and social dependencies that exist between the two countries from within.
Tabita Rezaire’s video installation Deep Down Tidal enquiries into the intricate cosmological, spiritual, political and technological entangled narratives sprung from water as an interface to understand the legacies of colonialism.
Together the artists' works summon different kinds of knowledges to envision futures different from the present.
Program:
La Vaughn Belle: In the Place of Shadows, 2021 (7:00 min.)
Bernard Akoi-Jackson:A_GOLDEN[R]AGE...(?), 2021 (4:52 min.)
Linda Lamignan: Between our Bodies and the Breathing Earth Pt.1, 2020 (10:37 min.)
Julie Edel Hardenberg: My First Coin, 2022 (13:00 min.)
Tabita Rezaire: Deep Down Tidal, 2017 (18:44 min.)
AUDIO-VISUAL WALK
Voices
in
the
Shadows
of
Monuments
