MAZE – Potential Archives, Fotografisk Center, – March 24th – May 21st , 2023
LÅNERKORT
(Librarycard)
A solo exhibition by Fryd Frydendahl
Vandrehallen Kunsthal at Hillerød Library 23 June – 3 September 2022
The library functions as a mirror, reflecting the subjects and phenomena that engulf a broad part of the population. The following genres universally appear on the library’s ‘book of the month’ lists; biographies, true crime, graphic novels, fairy tales, historical reference work, and craft books. All of these genres and titles may lead one to think – what do people do all day? The library forms a framework for free knowledge, widely available to the population. Knowledge that is still free of charge and to some extent still free of digital surveillance.
The idea for Lånerkort originated from the exhibition venue itself, Vandrehallen Kunsthal at Hillerød Library. It looks at the Library as a public place shaped by common interests, popular demands and in turn, it encourages its visitors to question. A place where you shop between everything and nothing, between the strangely concrete and the uncomfortably abstract. Vandrehallen Kunsthal is a 70-meter-long hall where the library’s visitors meet the exhibition at eye level.
Each work for the exhibition is based on a book that can be found in the library; you will be able to find the source of inspiration on the shelves through the title of the respective work, as the Dewey Decimal Classification will be included in the work description. This creates an interaction between the exhibition space and the functional space. In its own way, this will create a reflection of the wider population’s field of interest.
The interpretations of the books are illustrative counterparts to the book’s covers, titles, and themes, where they appear in a different abstract context. The production of the works focuses on stagings where people appear, as well as still-life photographs. What the works have in common is that they examine elements that contain contrasts or absurdity. For example, by replacing one of the elements from the cover – an adult foot that replaces a child’s foot. By pointing the microscope at a specific word from the book’s title or by the fact that the person appearing in the photograph itself gives it a completely new meaning. Interpretations with a twist that celebrates the strange and challenging corners of the human mind and imagination.