To Carl Nielsen, my Great Grandfather.
My first language and cultural reference is Danish, I sang in the church choir and grew up in a christian household. I was sent from South Korea when I was 2 years old to a Danish working class family in Jutland after a very questionable paper-adoption from a Korean academic family.
My Great Grandfather (2004) I made the first video when the Danish Ministry of culture in 2004 initiated a Danish Culture Canon simultaneously with a European rise in nationalism. Carl Nielsen being one of the most productive and beloved Danish composers and curator of psalmbooks and song collections was of course a central part of this. At the same time, reasearch showed that he himself had been part of a nationalist movement in his time, trying to define a national sentiment and aesthetic. So it seems, the invention of national aesthetics build on previous inventions in this case, rather than real traditions. His own music has been analyzed for patterns or styles that can be thought of as specific to a Danish characteristic, but other than being influenced by European movements, there has not been found any. His wife, artist Anne-Marie Carl Nielsen went to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts as myself and in many aspects I can see how she tried to find her way as a female artist and mother, torn between her family, her husband and her work. They both reflected on how artistic lives, family life and the financial appreciation of artists seemed incompatible on all levels, Carl being paid 50 Danish kroner once for Jens Vejmand, one of the most known of his songs and a widely beloved part of the Danish cultural heritage.
Interviewer: Suada Demirovic
New Songbooks (2005), the second video, is a collaboration between me, composer Christian Winther Christensen and poet Maja Lee Langvad. Inspired by Oswald de Andrades Anthropofagic Manifesto that introduced the term `cultural cannibalism', I initiated a series of projects that found its material in traditional forms of works in music, writing, art, language and even television, and suggested new readings, combinations and distortions. New Songbooks is one of these projects together with numerous performance partitures.
In these projects, I put the other, or the immigrant protagonist, in the center of history and national culture production. Whereas my asian roots often mirrors a service function or production line in a western context, my sewing machine performing, conductor-suit dressed character reassemble, or even cook up, a national being, that is both inside and outside, full of memories, critique and love for the artistic elements. Instead of being suppressed while sewing the flag-like fabric, I whistle small parts of Carl Nielsen in a joyous mood. I am the worker and the owner of this factory, all in one
Performance at U-Turn Quardennial for Contemporary Art, Carlsberg, 2008.
Musik: Christian Winther Christensen
Lyrik: Maja Lee Langvad
Sangere/skuespillere: Christian Winther Christensen, Regin Pedersen, Isabella Kragerup, Lasse Scwanenflügel Piasecki, Mathilde Kirknæs, Marie Grove, Nikolaj Worsae, mfl.
Installationphotos: Anders Sune Berg
Performancephotos: Andreas Rosforth
© Jette Hye Jin Mortensen