THE ONSET OF FEVER
2020, HET HEM, ZAANDAM, THE NETHERLANDS / 2021, OK CORRAL COPENHAGEN, DENMARK / 2022 THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF DENMARK, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
FOETUS: 65CM x 95CM x 59CM, CONCRETE, GLASS, STEEL, STYROFOAM, VARNISH
CORPUS: 126CM x 140CM x 245CM, STEEL, PAINTED WOOD, ALUMINIUM, LEATHER, CLAMPS, PLASTIC HOSE, LED LAMP, MOTION SENSOR
HOMEOSTASIS: 27:00 MIN, SOUND LOOP, DEVELOPED IN COLLABORATION WITH ALEXANDER HOLM
CONVERSION: 285CM x 253CM, ALUMINIUM, BOLTS, GEL, PAINT, VARNISH
You opened your eyes and woke up as usual. But you opened your eyes in the wrong house. A house without doors, without emergency exits. Reluctantly, you touched the walls of the house, and the walls felt soft. The walls felt soft as skin, the walls felt sharp and the walls felt thin, and the walls turned out to be the skin of your very own tiny, tender breast. The Onset Of Fever can be approached as an installational reflection of pain. Based on the human body, loneliness, chronic illnesses, and intimacy, some of the paradoxes and contrasts within pain are explored. Through sculpture, sound, and a large-scale wall piece, a universe of tension, subtle intimacy, and care for the self is created - qualities that also belong to the realm of pain. The house as an architectural symbol and metaphor for the human body plays a central role in the exhibition; the body as an inescapable abode, a host for both vitality and brutality, claustrophobia, and transcendence. The architectural references shine through in the formal structure of the works, juxtaposing the resemblance of a house in both construction and decay and the human body in simultaneous aging and regeneration. The sound piece Homeostasis and its fluctuating, pulse-like loop, establishes a larger architectural intervention, by enclosing the exhibition space as if we had entered the interior of a body. The protagonist of the exhibition is an unborn creature, guarding the exhibition like a watchdog. The creature, which caresses its genitals, is based on scientific research seemingly proving that foetuses masturbate in the womb of the mother. Most frequently this research has been used for anti-abortion campaigns, arguing that the ability of a foetus to feel pleasure as inseparable from the ability to feel pain. In our collective consciousness pain and pleasure appear to be inevitably interwoven as vital conditions for human life - even before birth.
2020, HET HEM, ZAANDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
PHOTOS BY FAN LIAO
2021, OK CORRAL, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
PHOTOS BY FILIP VEST