Call & Response
Part II: Chris woodvine & Lise Haurum
Call & Response is an experimental project activating two window galleries as sites for collaborative exhibition-making. Click here to learn more.
Photo by Anna Tarp Klode
CALL:
SILO
By Chris Woodvine
November 20, 2020 - January 10, 2021
The Demo Room at Galleri Image (Aarhus, Denmark)
Silo gives a disorienting view of the clay pits found throughout the West Midlands, a region of England that is renowned for pottery and ceramics. A silent, looping video shows drone footage from a local quarry. The drone hovers above the clay pit, sometimes rotating in place, other times flying across the landscape, or zooming towards the ground below. From above one can clearly see traces of industrialization - lines, shadows, and contours carved into the landscape by the quarry’s machinery.
Artist Chris Woodvine (UK) further disrupts the landscape with layers of geometric shapes and patterns that move across the video screen, partially obstructing the scene below. These shapes, which resemble corporate logos, contain additional drone footage of the quarry. They act as windows into other views of the landscape, offering glimpses of red earth and gray stone. They also echo industrial processes of refining, compressing, and synthesizing natural materials. Woodvine is interested in how such materials are circulated, organized, and stored - an idea that for him is emblematized by the silo.
Photo by Jacob Juhl
Response:
MERGEL
by Lise Haurum
January 13 - March 7, 2021
The Demo Room at Galleri Image (Aarhus, Denmark)
Mergel is the Danish word for “marl” - a chalky, wet and lumpy clay historically used to fertilize farmlands. In the past marl was mined all over Denmark by digging pits, both large and small, deep into the ground. Once depleted, the pits were often abandoned. Over time many of these pits filled with rainwater and transformed into beautiful, but sometimes dangerous, pseudo-lakes that are now home to a wide variety of wildlife. However this wildlife is rapidly disappearing, as marl pits are increasingly viewed as obstacles in the agricultural landscape and actively destroyed.
The exhibition Mergel features a text by Danish artist Lise Haurum, written from the perspective of a marl pit - observing the growth and decay of surrounding wildlife over time. The exhibition also features clay samples excavated by Haurum from a former marl pit near her home on the east coast of Jutland.
The exhibition Mergel features a text by Danish artist Lise Haurum, written from the perspective of a marl pit - observing the growth and decay of surrounding wildlife over time (included below). The exhibition also features clay samples excavated by Haurum from a former marl pit near her home on the east coast of Jutland.
Photo by Anna Tarp Klode
Photo by Jacob Juhl
Photo by Anna Tarp Klode
Photo by Jacob Juhl
Photo by Anna Tarp Klode
Photo by Jacob Juhl
MERGEL by Lise Haurum (translation by Phillip Shiels)
Under a sheet of freshwater lies my sixty million year old I – compressed and oleaginous. A pale rhizome has branched out into a tangle of roots through the ooze, from which a forest of giant grasses eagerly grows. In time, the reed bed will choke its surroundings and I will be covered by a wig of marshland plants. Between the reed stalks in the cold water a pike, as if petrified, stares up at the sloping bank. There, my weather-beaten soil lies exposed. Cracked. Worn down. At the edge of the bank stands a willow tree. I’ve observed the tree for many years, from the time it was a small upright shoot to where it stands now; bowed and wounded. Its roots attempt to grasp the air where the marl has eroded. The wind moves through the willow. The branches sway; bending slightly, almost touching the surface of the water. As each day passes the willow comes closer and in a few years it will become a part of me, together with the skeleton of that man whose eyes are now in the pike’s intestinal system. And join all the other secrets that I have held for people through time. I am an indentation in the landscape. Useful, once. Now, the surrounding land slowly eats away at me. Will I one day be a field of rapeseed? Will I be demolished?
Marl:
Calcerous clay often used in the past for soil enrichement.
Keeping the Wolves from the Door
By Chris Woodvine and Lise Haurum
24 APRIL – 8 MAY, 2021
AirSpace Gallery (Stoke-on-Trent, UK)
With Keeping the Wolves from the Door, artists Lise Haurum (DK) and Chris Woodvine (UK) reflect on the fluidity and meaning of language through the lens of idioms and proverbs. Although the meaning behind common expressions can feel self-evident to those who are familiar with them, they do not always translate across cultures. Take for example the Danish idiom “there is no cow on the ice” - meaning, there is no problem. Yet these expressions can help build strong cultural identities, especially when they are culturally specific. In this way they hold value. Proverbs are particularly valued as expressions of truth and wisdom based on shared experiences. But because of this, proverbs can often act as dead ends for discussion and critique. They carry a weight of finality that can be hard to contradict.
The exhibition features a new video artwork by Chris Woodvine, titled Man’s Junk, which splices a series of British proverbs into one continuous text that scrolls across the screen. The 3D lettering and scrolling banner format recall low-budget advertisements and motivational quotes that populate the internet, especially social media. Woodvine is particularly interested in how this aesthetic has been shaped by internet trolls who derail online discussions through “shitposting” - a practice that sometimes weaponizes proverbs as provocations.
Woodvine will also exhibit a new sculptural work titled KTWFTD - an acronym of the exhibition’s title. Each letter is 3-D printed in a warped design that disrupts legibility. Suspended from a mobile, the letters appear to float, twisting and turning in a motion that mirrors their digital rendering and animation. Here Woodvine draws inspiration from CAPTCHA, the verification system that uses a distinctly wavy script to differentiate human users from bots.
Lise Haurum’s text-based installation, UGLEN I MOSEN, traces the evolution of the Danish proverb, der er ugler i mosen. Directly translated as “there are owls in the bog”, this proverb expresses that something is wrong. Originally the proverb warned of wolves, not owls, but after wolves became extinct in Denmark, local dialects mutated “wolves” into “owls” based on similar pronunciations. In her text, Haurum inserts the figure of an owl into 39 Danish proverbs. The owl’s strange and unfamiliar presence in these proverbs unsettles their meaning and invites them to be read in a new light.
Photo by Glen Stoker
Photo by Glen Stoker
Photo by Glen Stoker
Photo by Glen Stoker
Photo by Glen Stoker
UGLEN I MOSEN by Lise Haurum (translation by Phillip Shiels)
The owl sees the light of day. The owl feels like a pig in shit. The owl can’t see the forest for the trees. The owl is sly as a fox. The owl has a frog in its throat. The owl is hungry as the wolf. The owl hears someone singing like a canary. The owl has butterflies in its stomach. The owl builds a castle in the air. The owl leaves the wolf in the dark. The owl goes bananas. The owl squeezes until the pips squeak. The owl is the icing on the cake. The owl bites the bullet. The owl admits defeat. The owl steals sweets from babies. The owl steals the show. The owl makes a scene. The owl has a heavy heart. The owl hangs its head. The owl has its heart in the right place. The owl has the wind beneath its wings. The owl racks its brains. The owl puts out some feelers. The owl has a song in its heart. The owl turns a deaf ear. The owl has had its feathers ruffled. The owl has lost its heart to someone. The owl has something stuck in its craw. The owl knows which way the wind is blowing. The owl lets its mind wander. The owl has its head in the clouds. The owl is heaven-sent. The owl lets all things be equal. The owl has its own place in the sun. The owl moves heaven and earth. The owl is in seventh heaven. The owl is on cloud nine. Suspicious, the owl shrieks: it smells a rat, smells a wolf.