Trikster Blog

On May 29 at 17.00 you are all invited to the opening of the exhibition Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive at Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Denmark.

The exhibition Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive is curated by Jane Rowley and Louise Wolthers, and “presents a series of spectacular, thought-provoking works that generate new narratives based on private memories and experiences beyond gender and sexuality norms. Using the potent and emotionally laden detritus of society, like found silent-movie footage, garments from the family past, and desecrated and fictionalised photo albums, the works in Lost and Found recreate, deconstruct and reconstruct the past as we allegedly know it, questioning the power structures that are created and preserved through the archives we’ve inherited.”

Participating artists in the exhibition are Elmgreen & Dragset (DK/NO), Mary Coble (US), Ingo Taubhorn (DE), Tejal Shah (IN), Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay (CA), Conny Karlsson (SE), Flemming Rolighed (DK), Aleesa Cohene (CA), Kimberly Austin (US), Cecilia Barriga (CL) og Heidi Lunabba (FI), Al Masson (FR/DK).

At the opening there will also be a book launch of the publication Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive, published in conjunction with the exhibition. Edited by Mathias Danbolt, Jane Rowley and Louise Wolthers, this 160 page publication takes up questions of the archive, history writing, and memory from a queer perspective.

The book includes new articles by the influential cultural theorists Ann Cvetkovich and Heather Love, as well as articles by the editors, poems by Joe Brainard, and artistic contributions from the artists in the exhibition.

The book is avaliable for only 150 DKK. Order it by emailing Kunsthallen Nikolaj: sh@kunsthallennikolaj.dk or buy it online on Audiatur bookstore.

From May 7-10, our friends from Openhagen.net organize the festival Undoing the City in Copenhagen. It will be three days with “workshops, debates, film-screenings, city walks, canal tours, parades, actions and alike will question our use of the city”. They invite all of us who “use the city space and who have a wish to make the city a common space to participate in Undoing the City”. It will be great!

Here is some more background:
“Cities today are scene for a long series of conflicts between different society groups. It’s a battle going on between those who are forced out into ghettolike districts, those who retreat to gated communities in the suburbs, the creative class in the redeveloped city centres, and the police who increasingly are forced to ensure these separations. The city and its space are more and more becoming battle zones – battle zones which call for a re-conquest of the city space against fences, profit and discrimination. It is a battle to be fought with theoretical inputs, political statements and with the entire spectrum of social, cultural and artistic forms of anti-power. We want to challenge both the capitals, the states, the city governments and the creative class’s ideas of the city. And we want to challenge our own idea of the city. Let’s undo the city.”

Read more about the thoughts, discussions (and soon also the program) for Undoing the City on Openhagen.net or on Undoing the city’s Wikispace.

On Saturday June 21 at 21.00 there will be a sleazy support party for Copenhagen Queer Festival at Folkets Hus at Nørrebro in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen Queer Festival takes place between July 21-27 at AFUK, Kigkurren on Islands Brygge in Copenhagen. The support party will give a taste of what to expect later on this summer. The party will fill three floors in Folkets Hus, and among other things contain dirty DJ’s and VJ’s, cocktail-lounge, dress-up/dress-down corner, chill-out & enjoy-eachother-lounge and the exclusive chance of supporting the local queer festival and having a great time, all at once! (Cover charge: 40 DKK)

The day before the support party, on Friday June 20 at 19.00, Enhedslistens Queerudvalg will thrown another queer cafe event, Cafe Under Dekonstruktion, at Folkets Hus. Here the organizers of the Copenhagen Queerfestival will give a presentation of the festival, and everybody is invited to decorate the place for the support party. If you have loads of fantastic fabrics and materials at home, bring it!