International Sun 12-09-2010

Cultural Clash, Dissolved Nations & new Destinations
Press Release

The exhibition, Localities, explores the personal visions of local places throughout the world, and takes a comparative and thematic look at the concepts 'local' and 'global'.

The exhibition is also part of the nationwide festival My World Images, whose overall theme is 'my world'. How free are you really?

Localities focuses on a world of zones, where certain fantasies and ideas are struggling against each other. Selected artists from the Middle East, Africa and Europe are showing works that are based on the local, its peculiarities and the cultural and political reality in the world's various zones.

The zones are broken and the understanding of the local and the idea of the particular turned upside down in the exhibited works. Through the use of real and fictional narratives, the artists question the world images we consume every day.

^{Bread of life by Adel Abidin}

The title, Localities, refers to the city of Roskilde. It also refers to how artists living in different parts of the globe envision their own world. These 'worlds' are interacting zones holding fantasies, frustration and alienation.

In the current international geopolitical context, the perception of 'my world' and 'my images' resonates in multiple ways depending on who is presenting and who is receiving them. By the use of real or fictional narrations, the artists question the value of the images of the world we daily receive and often passively consume.

The exhibition:

Adel Abidin puts the term 'bread of life' in a new light when four men in ties play music in the video Bread of Life (2008). Wael Shawky comments on the clash of cultures in The Cave (2005) in which he recites a passage from the Qur'an while roaming the aisles of a Western supermarket.

The Palestinian artist Khalil Rabah opens a new office at the museum with his fictive travel agency United States of Palestine Airlines (2007), while Emeka Ogboh brings the characteristic sounds of Lagos to Roskilde in the installation Lagos Soundscape (2008).

Esra Ersen invites the audience along on a journey in the video installation Passengers (2009), where we follow a group of Turkish women leaving their neighbourhood en route to the Bosphorus for the first time in their lives. The artist group Doing it for Daddy presents a new take on Denmark in Der er et yndigt land (There Is a Lovely Land)(2010) based on research the group has conducted in South Africa and subsequently completed in Roskilde.

Alen Aligrudic’s work Greetings from Yugoslavia (2003- 2009) about the dissolution of a nation, will be presented for the first time in its entirety. The work is composed of photographs of Bosnia- Herzegovina as well as pictures of Denmark which can only be distinguished after close examination.

Finally, Moridja Kitenge Banza presents a newly formed federation, L’Union des États, with its own flag, coat of arms and currency. The work consists of a spatial installation and a performance in the form of a presidential speech to be performed at the opening.

^{L’Union des États by Moridje Kitenge Banza}

The exhibition is curated by:

Sanne Kofod Olsen (DK), director/curator at Museum of Contemporary Art, N'Goné Fall (SN/FR), independent curator
Samar Martha (PS/GB), independent curator.

Press photos can be downloaded here.

My World Images Festival:

The exhibition takes place in the context of My World Images Festival, Denmark coordinated by the Danish Center for Culture and Development (www.dccd.dk), but is independent of the festival as an exhibition concept in it self. For more information about My World Images please see www.images.dk

Thanks to: Danish Center for Culture and Development, Danish Arts Council, Roskilde Manucipation and The Augustinus Foundation.

Exhibition period: 10 September – 7 November, 2010