Humans on earth - by Molly Haslund

Humans on earth – by Molly Haslund

Three hours of silence before the storm?

TIME: Saturday 3 Sept. 13.00-16.00 – stay for as long as you wish
PLACE: Blågårds Plads, Cph. N
WHAT: Performance action
FREE

Time has stopped. All movement is silenced. 22 people are lying on the ground.

At one point, one of them starts to move, gets up and walks out among the passers-by in the square. Another raises her arm in the air, and a little later a new person comes and lies down – a person who has been invited to lie down for a while. There’s something going on.

Together with a group of people from Nørrebro and with the help of passers-by, Molly Haslund creates the image of a shared, resting body that imperceptibly changes – like the cells in an organism that are slowly replaced.

The framework for the performance is a set of simple instructions that are followed by the 22 participants and by people in the audience who want to join in. Together and through ongoing negotiations, they maintain the common image.

If you are nearby, you might want to lie down. Then you simply follow the instructions that you will find on the site.

The joint action takes place at Blågårds Plads, which, as a rarity in the city, is a space that does not dictate a specific purpose. The square is framed by sculptor Kai Nielsen’s 22 granite figures created a century ago as a tribute to the working people. Here they watch over everyday life, and over time they have formed the framework for the square’s battles and social life.

In her performative practice, visual artist Molly Haslund investigates social situations in all their banality, absurdity and beauty – and at Blågårds Plads it is the interaction between the frozen image and the social living body that is in focus.

As part of the action, visual artist Johan Malik Andersen and graphic artist Julie Asmussen will document the performance in drawings that will later be displayed in the local area.

DO YOU WANT TO BE A PART OF THE WORK?

1. Enter the square quietly, tap one of the performers on the shoulder. Agree briefly how long you want to lie down, and then take the person’s place on the ground. Lie down in a resting position and stay completely still for as long as you can.

2. If you need to change position, you stand up and go and poke another participant so that you can switch places. Make sure to show the person where you were lying. You can then both lie down on your new places in a self-selected lying position.

3. When you don’t want to join anymore, you get up and leave. You can either go out into the audience and find a new replacement, whom you point to your spot – or the person you replaced will return and take the place again.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Molly Haslund is educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and Glasgow School of Art (2005). She works performatively, and her works span autobiographical and musical performances, scenographic installations and choreographed group performances in public spaces. With changing strategies, she investigates how identity, social hierarchies and norms are closely connected with and are negotiated via bodily gestures, cultural rituals and the design of our surroundings.

In the individual works, specific places, historical archive material or trivial objects and situations from everyday life are the starting point for Haslund’s subtle interventions. Thematically, she deals with the mechanisms of interpersonal relationships, just as with an absurd-humorous twist she raises questions about the nature of representation, contemporary socio-economic rationales as well as the individual’s autonomy and freedom of action in a modern world.

www.mollyhaslund.com