Slide show installation with 81 slides looping 7 minutes Danish text Projected on a sail hanging from the ceiling

“If a place is defined by memory, but no one who remembers is left to bring these memories to the surface, does a place become no place[...]?”
Lucy Lippard

What layers of stories and histories are connected to a given site? This project is a study of the area Holmen in Copenhagen, Denmark. The project is a slide show consisting of my drawings of the area through history, and uses story fragments I have gathered by interviewing people with different connections to the area. In the project we hear the voices of characters such as the architect, the resident, the archaeologist, the submarine builder and the canal tour guide.

The voices give historical, archaeological, architectural, and mundane perspectives on the site, a disputed spot on the map through history. Holmen is the place where the Hansa traders in the 15th century sank their old ships as a protest against the king’s plans for introducing a tax when passing the Øresund; the place where the naval shipyard has been placed in 300 years and created a framework for military defence and building of ships; the place where a controversial opera house was recently built, and a place at the centre of recent debates about how formerly industrial harbour areas are being used today, and by whom.

Using documentary as well as fictional elements, the slide show is a sampling of big and small stories connected to the area, of conflicting views and displaced perspectives.

”It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
Herman Melville

Shown at the group exhibition ”Crossing now! - samtidskunst på Holmen”, Masteskurene, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2005.

Slide samples, "A few things I heard about Holmen"

Installation view, from the exhibition "Crossing now! - samtidskunst på Holmen"