PAST EXHIBITIONS
20-22 June 2025
BOTANIK – Under the Dark Sky
Kunstrum Fyn`s second art and science festival amplifies the voices of plants and their ecosystems through the works and insights of several thought-provoking artists and scientists. Grounded in the natural landscape and farmland of Funen, BOTANIK – Under the Dark Sky seeks to deepen our understanding of humanity's connection to nature:
The relationship between plants and humans is deeply rooted in our shared history and culture. Plants have been our steadfast companions throughout time, playing an indispensable role in our daily lives. Botany—the study of plants, including their structure, growth, reproduction, and interactions with the environment—serves as a vital scientific field that underpins our understanding of nature.
Biodiversity is essential for ecological stability and resilience. However, we currently confront extensive environmental challenges that expose a troubling contradiction: the juxtaposition of biodiversity and industrial agriculture. In Denmark, industrial agriculture occupies 57% of the country's land area, rendering it one of the most intensively cultivated nations globally, alongside Bangladesh. This situation is even more pronounced on Funen, where 80% of the land is devoted to agriculture. In stark contrast, just 15% of Denmark's land is designated as natural, and less than 0.5% remains truly wild.
This precarious landscape underscores the urgent need for dialogue and action. Understanding the intricate relationships between plants, humans, and our environment is crucial as we navigate these challenges ahead.
How do we relate to our natural surroundings? What can we learn from plants, and what roles can they play in shaping our future? The festival program features a diverse array of activities, including exhibition, art projects set in the surrounding nature, lectures and workshops, interdisciplinary conversations, forest walks, and an engaging film and performance program.
Together, we will examine vital social and ecological relationships, fostering thoughtful dialogues that nurture a more complex and compassionate bond between plants and humans.
Artists:
Astrid Sten Andersen ( DK ), Christine Ölund ( SE ), Joakim Blattmann ( NO ), Margrethe Petterse ( NO ), Martin Schier Christiansen ( DK ), Marie Louise Westring Hvidman ( DK ), Morten F. Mortensen ( DK ), Nils Bech ( NO ), Sidsel Nørgaard-Nielsen ( DK ), Vandana Shiva ( IN ), Åsa Sonjasdotter ( SE )
22 September 2024
Fællesskabsstafetten
The Tårup Exhibition
There are many artists living in and around our village Tårup. Sunday 22nd of September 35 of these creative souls exhibited their works in Kunstrum Fyn as part of Fællesskabsstafetten, an initiative by Nyborg Kommune lifting forward the many great communities and local initiatives in our municipality.
“The Tårup Exhibition” gave a unique insight into all the art, design and craft produced in our local community and Kunstrum Fyn was the proud host of the one-day event, Sunday 22 September.
Artists:
Kasper Holm Jensen, Jørn Albertus, Lea Mi Engholm, Claus Hugo Nielsen, Iris van Dongen, Line von Schmidt, Crispin Gurholt, Martin Skauen, Dora Haraszti, Naja Schonemann, Jette Pagh, Birgitte Cordes, Mikkel Toft Hornum, Anne Marie Regitze Petersen, Søren Schmidt Hansen, Else Marie Schjerning, Helle Gert Petersen, Ulla Skibdal, Anne Petersen, Lars Vegas Nielsen, Kirsten Thielsing, Erik O Jensen, Asger Have, Annelise Spangsgård, Felix Exner Lenzing, Per Midjord, Birgit Birkholm Mengel, Ellen Larsen, Annette Langholm, Jost Hettwer, Sidsel Nørgaard-Nielsen, Else Margrethe Fischer, Susanne Fransen, Birgit Mortensen and
Merete Petersen.
28 – 30 June 2024
Art Weekend Under the Dark Sky
The weekend program included an international group exhibition with the artists Wolfgang Tillmans (DE/UK), Birgit Johnsen & Hanne Nielsen (DK), Louise Beer (NZ/UK), Marian Wijnvoord (NL/DE) and HC Gilje (NO), a live program with musician and composer Sidsel Nørgaard Nielsen (DK), DJ Kurt Vildgren (NO) and artist Susanne Christensen (DK), artist talks & conversations, and special activities for children.
Art Weekend Under the Dark Sky took place in June 2024 and was a weekend dedicated to art, talks, music, performance and sound at Kunstrum Fyn.
Kunstrum Fyn is invited to take part in this year's Art Matter Festival in Copenhagen.
Thursday 30 May in Park Bio at Østerbro, Kunstrum Fyn presents the performance program Dark Sky with artists Matti Aikio, Maria Dorothea Schrattenholz and Mads Borre. The event also includes a conversation between the artists and the curators Crispin Gurholt and Helga-Marie Nordby.
The event is a collaboration with Foyer Contemporary.
27 October – 29 October 2023
Open Video is a film and moving image exhibition initiated and curated by Norwegian artist Janne Talstad annually in Oslo since 2014. Hundreds of video works and over a hundred artists have been presented through Open Video, which has also been shown in the Orkney Islands, in Hong Kong and Italy. Last weekend in October this year Kunstrum Fyn is the location for Open Video VXI, which will include contributions from a hundred Norway- and Denmark-based artists.
A dedicated live program of talks, panels and performances will contextualise the exhibition.
Welcome to the opening of Open Video XVI Friday 27th of October 19:00 – 22:00
Open Video VXI is curated by Janne Talstad, Crispin Gurholt, Helga-Marie Nordby and Aaron Kriegh Moilton
Open call - Video art in Denmark
Video artists in Denmark are invited to submit their contributions to Open Video VXI through open call. The deadline for submission is October 6.
A dedicated jury consisting of artist Janne Talstad, artist Crispin Gurholt (Kunstrum Fyn) and curator Helga-Marie Nordby (Kunstrum Fyn) will select the works.
Send your video to kunstrumfyn@gmail.com before October 6
Open Video screens over a hundred video works in its annual exhibition program and is a broad summon of video art. Its purpose is to be a representative platform for professional video art and to show a range of works regardless themes, type, and formats. If the quality is good, the work will be included in the program.
Due to the curatorial openness and the high number of artists involved, there is no fee available for participating artists.
It is otherwise normal practice for Kunstrum Fyn to honor artists who participate in their curated exhibitions.
Image captions
Above: Malie Robb, Shaved
Right: Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Unicorn
Open Video
Text by Kristian Skylstad
Open Video derives from the idea of Open Source, which means the open video is a video that can be freely used, changed, and shared. Thus the program in Open Video can be changed by both the curator and the artists involved over time. The program stays the same, with alterations based on natural needs. The program becomes a vessel for content, and in the arbitrary of the diverse content curatorial challenges will become obvious, which again creates the need for curatorial narration in the program. Janne Talstad has summarized the tendencies in the field through the development of the medium, and the curatorial instructions to the different artists became clear; do your best or do what you need. Some has done both. One can say that this video program is the same as any, which is true in a sense, but it's different in the notion that it lacks a center, an agenda and an intention. The aspiration is both aesthetic, political and dealing with the medium as such, so by mixing the program as a note sheet a video graphic composition becomes apparent. The program bites its own tail, the identity of the artist becomes secondary, and the program turns into a joint effort of showing the variety of how to deal with and produce video. The program transforms into a vessel, a toolbox, which changes through the different venues it's presented, in size, quality and geography. The source code is open; generating a diverse landscape of work, through the media of video. The artists share one thing; a total dedication to their own practice, though video might only be one of their tools, one way of expressing oneself.
Video is easy to carry, because you only need a memory stick. We intend on being the messenger.
Open Video XVI
31 August - 10 September 2023
Tårup Dark Sky`s exhibition, with the title The Universe, includes artists combining scientific, aesthetic, and speculative perspectives, creating connections between man, nature, and the cosmos, to address questions related to our fascination with the infinite universe.
In the exhibition, visitors are invited into a room of speculation, a space where new relations, counter stories and new knowledge become possible. The art works in the show draw connections across time periods, between micro and macro perspectives, between past and present, between past and future, between present and future. Art can take us further where science leaves off. Art can suggest alternative and parallel stories, ask open questions without provable answers. Welcome to The Universe.
Artists: Nanna Debois Buhl (DK), HC Gilje (NO), Solveig Lønseth (NO), Mads Borre (DK) Sidsel Christensen (DK/NO), Matti Aikio (FI), Kirsti van Hoegee (NO), Dane Dodds (ZA/DK), and Maria Dorothea Schrattenholz (NO)