Voices in the Shadows of Monuments
By Barly Tshibanda, Nanna Elvin Hansen & Katrine Dirckinck Holmfeld,
Audio Visual Walk, 2022
You can experience the audio guide here: https://www.shadowsofmonuments.dk/map
Voices in the Shadows of Monuments is an audio walk that examines material traces from the colonial era embedded in buildings and monuments in the center of Copenhagen.The walk takes you from Christianshavns Torv to Kongens Nytorv, creating a polyphonic soundscape. The artists Jupiter J. Child (MZ/DK), La Vaughn Belle (USVI), Sirí Paulsen (GL/DK), Sabitha Söderholm (DK/IN), Oceana James (USVI), Julie Edel Hardenberg (GL) and Bernard Akoi-Jackson (GH) create narratives that intertwine different geographies and times: Past and present interweave and testify to how colonialism is not a closed chapter, but still has strong reverberations in the present. You are invited to assemble the fragments that you encounter along the route into new narratives about the city.
The audio walk is approx. 1 hour and 40 minutes. All you need is a pair of headphones and a tablet / smartphone from which you can play the audio. Feel free to listen to it wherever you are in the world and enjoy the visuals.
Background Following the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, where monuments celebrating colonists were being toppled worldwide, in Denmark there was a general atmosphere that this was a history that only pertained to the British, the Dutch, the Belgian, the French, the US etc. and that Denmark was/is a benevolent colonizer. We became interested in exploring how colonialism is inscribed in the built environment and monuments in central Copenhagen. And once you stumble across it - it is everywhere. We invited the artists Bernard Akoi-Jackson, La Vaughn Belle, Jupiter J. Child, Julie Edel Hardenberg, Oceana James, Sirí Paulsen and Sabitha Söderholm to create site-specific voices and narratives for the different locations. Apart from initial conversations held with the artists, they all used different methods of performativity or storytelling that they are already working with in their artistic practice. Bringing all the pieces together, it was amazing to see how relationships started to emerge between the different voices. Copenhagen Light Festival provided the setting to experiment with light projections. For the inaugural tours, visuals designed by Barly Tshibanda were projected on the Layer Cake House and the equestrian statue of Christian V.
Voices in the Shadows of Monuments was awarded the Danish Arts Councils exhibition award in 2022.
Credits
Created by Barly Tshibanda (DRC), Nanna Elvin Hansen (DK) and Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld (DK), 2022.
Participating artists and voices: Bernard Akoi-Jackson (GH), La Vaughn Belle (USVI), Oceana James (USVI), Jupiter J. Child (MZ/DK), Julie Edel Hardenberg (GL), Oceana James (USVI), Sirí Paulsen (GL/DK) and Sabitha Söderholm (IN/DK).
Narrator and kalimba: Jupiter J. Child (MZ/DK)
Sound design: Arash Pandi (IR/DK)
Visuals and illustrations: Barly Tshibanda (DRC)
Layout and website: Anders Gerning (DK)
Languages: English, Danish, Greenlandic, Sanskrit and more.
The project is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, Copenhagen Light Festival, Kunsthal Charlottenborg and Rådet for Visuel Kunst, Københavns Kommune.
We want to thank all the artists who have made this project possible; as well as Rendering the State, F.eks., C4 Projects; Daniela Agostinho, the Bridge Radio, the residents of Lagkagehuset as well as all the people who have been on the walk and provided valuable feedback.