Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art (2013)
Copper tube, white fabric, indigo blue fabric, wooden framed images/photos, 7 channel video b/w with sound, videoprojection color no sound, surroundsound, spotlights, indigo blue carpet, platforms with felt and low frequency sound.

The Apology was awarded the Aage and Yelva Nimb Foundation Honorary Award

Update: after almost 10 years of being cancelled and experiencing backlash, the community of korean adoptees investigating critically the holistic implications of transnational adoption have experienced a tremendous breakthrough, coming from the Danish adoption debate led by artists, writers and activists for almost twenty years now:
South Korea’s truth commission to investigate dozens of foreign adoptions . Other European national investigations have been processed or are underway, documenting illegal adoption practices and from 2023 the Danish government is also officially investigating South Korean adoptions from the 1970s-1980s.

Description:
With a starting point in Gordon Browns official apology to the Home Childen in 2010, a historical child migration scheme rooted deeply in colonialism and racism, I draw a link to critical examinations of modern day transnational adoption as human trade, unrecognized generational trauma and healing matter, transforming Overgaden into a literally groundbreaking healing space of reparation and care, art & natural science and ancient empowerment rituals. The 4 blade phurba knife held by me, is traditionally used to indicate a center for a new world or beginning. I use the many-blade knife to connect pain, self harm, the popular image of female vengeance and sand calligraphy with healing and the power to write your own history. In constructive, sensory ways, I want to unveil a silent pain, that traditionally has been a personal psychology, but is in fact a collective experience of loss, despair and rootless shadow existence.

Solo exhibition in 3 parts:
Healing - Method - Archive

Healing
Healing space with indigo blue carpet and large curtain of sheer indigo blue fabric hanging in a diagonal line that ends in a fibonacci spiral with a spotlight in the middle and a soundscape composed by Eyvind Gulbrandsen with healing properties, playing in randomized patterns. Walking in spirals have from ancient times been practiced in many cultures as a magic ritual of reconnecting ourselves to the universe and celestial patterns and energy flows. Two circular platforms to sit on with soft, indigo wool and low frequency sound, that absorbs into the body while seated, mirroring each other on both sides of a video projection of the artist in a performance of ancient exercises to transform self harm, anxiety and sorrow to scientific discovery, movement and new beginnings with a tibetan phurba knife and ayurvedic shirodara meditation. The internalized, gaslighting from being defined by a prison of stories from unequal power balances is slowly washed away and new, fresh skin and emotions can appear to the world.

Method
A framed image, the same length as the artist when she was adopted to Denmark and the name tag and number she had around her arm. The framed email from her first father, when they finally regained contact after 25 years of separation. Here he explains how she was taken away without his knowledge and how he searched for her all these years. Three framed images: 1. the element of CU (copper), having properties of energy and oxygen flow in the body. Used as a main construction material in the installations and the main spine in the mapping of the art project (see poster). 2. 108 day transition experiment making meditiative Indigo blue dots, the color Indigo blue having wavelengths that stimulate the pineal gland and melatonin production in the brain, and the ability to relax and sleep. 3. DNA, the body, and introducing epigenetics and inherited trauma, our past and our hidden ancestral connections as an internal, dizzying scale of intentions and experiences that are working through us and our nervous systems, bodies and tendencies. 4. A framed scan of a traumatized brain.

Archive
On a diagonal line of copper hangs a transparent, white curtain covering an archive of metallic shelves with projectors displaying moving text from files from the British Home Children scheme, media clips with sound from Korean adoptees trying to find family and African first parents telling about theft of their children, rare footage of controversial and violent Attachment Therapy sessions used by some adoption families and movie excerpts from Oranges and Sunshine, portraying the unravelling of the unethical Home Children scheme and the actual footage of British prime minister Gordon Brown making an official appology to the Home Childen. Underlying colonial politics, journalistic findings, dates and notes from research and drawn on the walls in circular mandalas with a mixture of black ink and the artist´s blood. The sound in the room is a cacophony of voices, stories, cries.

During the exhibition period at Overgaden, there was a performance by writer Maja Lee Langvad with excerpts from her book She Is Angry (A Personal account of transnational adoption) as well as a panel debate with the artist and researchers Lene Myong and Rikke Andreassen and a screening of the movies Oranges and Sunshine by Kim Loach and Resilience by Tammy Chu.

Credits
Sound composition: Eyvind Gulbrandsen
Video: Producer – Claudia Saginario; Filmphotography – Catherine Pattinama Coleman; Editor – Linda Man

Warm Thanks to
Tijana Miskovic, Louise Hansen, Filmgear, Ribka Pattinama Coleman, Timme Hovind, Danny Bertz Sørensen, Mikkel Friis-Møller, Line Lyhne, Maja Lee Langvad, Kim Stoker, Lasse Kjederqvist, Tammy Chu, Jim Loach, Lene Myong, Dorrit Saietz, Rikke Andreasen, Jim Karlsen.

Sponsors
KVADRAT
Dynaudio
Interface

Supported by The Danish Arts Council