Art Centre Silkeborg Bad

2009

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2 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
An art exhibition with points of view

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4 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
Preface
An exciting aspect of art is its way of communicating across
national boundaries from person to person.
Furthermore, artists – in this case visual artists – under-
stand how to use their very special sensitivity to visualising,
in the broader sense, conditions of humanity and society
that are in need of our attention. Exhibition and catalogue
present 35 Danish and foreign artists who contribute with
new and recent works for the project.
The meeting with art creates to the spectator a mirror, a
possibility to reflect – perhaps something important has
been brought forward which is not yet conscious or which
has not yet been put into words. This happens with the
countless means of expression in contemporary art, and
thus, the visitor will experience installation, film, painting,
sculptural elements, photography, events etc. in both buil-
dings and the park area.
The exhibition comprises the interpretations by visual ar-
tists of the concept of ”exile” – the feeling of homelessness
and alienation – philosophically, politically, emotionally
and/or existentially. Film and poetry in the exhibition and
the texts of the catalogue draw lines to even more aspects
of the subject.
The steering group: Bodil Brems, Gunnar Bay, Bent Hedeby Sørensen, Gerda Thune Andersen, and Iben From
The initiative behind EXILE comes from a handful of Danish
artists with the common trait of being members of the ar-
tist union PRO. PRO has since 2002 developed a tradition
of entering into international dialogues with colleagues.
This is done with the intention of challenging audience
self-perceptions as well as perceptions of contemporary
society. The initiators have formed the project steering
group along with the Art Centre Silkeborg Bad.
We would like to extend our thanks to all those who have
in one way or the other aided in realising the project, inclu-
ding all participating artists, the authors of this catalogue,
private businesses, embassies, anonymous contributors,
and funds who have provided financial support for the
project. Without such support, the project would not have
been realisable.
With the exhibition concept of EXILE, it is our intention to
focus on an immediate and urgent problem to humanity.
We have been looking forward to showing an exhibition
that acts in an international field, and to the Art Centre Sil-
keborg Bad, the international dialogue is fully in line with
the purpose of the facility.
A warm thanks to all the participating artists!
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 Index
5 Preface
Colophon 8 Tine Hind / Trafficking
10 Jimbut Jun Feng / Poems
EXILE is displayed from 16 May – 30 August 2009 14 Mohamed Aboulenaga / The Lion
16 Gunnar Bay / Artist in Exile
Editors:
The steering group 18 Kjetil Berge / Tatli Müzik (Sweet Music)
(Bodil Brems, Gunnar Bay, Bent Hedeby Sørensen, 20 Are Blytt and Per Kristian Nygård / Stealthiest State of Mind
Gerda Thune Andersen, and Iben From)
22 Bodil Brems / The EXILE Game
Graphic design: Gunnar Bay 24 Gerda Thune Andersen / No Place
Translation: Alex Høy 26 Else Marie Bukdahl / Emigrants
28 Gerda Thune Andersen, Marit Benthe Norheim
Proofreader: Iben From og Marie Strøm
and Moustafa Al Yassin / We are All in the Same Boat
Font: Myriad pro 34 Marit Benthe Norheim / CampingWomen
36 Nermin Durakovic / The Distance from and to
Print: www.silkeborg-bogtryk.dk
38 Nikos Giavropoulos / Self Exile
Publisher: 40 Jon Gislason / House on Iceland
Art Centre Silkeborg Bad • www.silkeborgbad.dk
Gjessøvej 40, 8600 Silkeborg. Phone: + 45 8681 6329 42 Smike Käszner / God and Darwin in Art
44 Karen Kjær Laursen / Sad Rain
© Copyright: Art Centre Silkeborg Bad, authors and artists
46 Sverre Raffnsøe / The Exile of Art
Support: 48 Nina Kleivan and Pernelle Maegaard / Travel Agency Wunderschön
The exhibition has received support from
50 Matthias Köster / Gravestone in Paris
the Danish Art Council Visual Arts Committee, 52 Kirsten Lampert / Mixed media on paper
the Danish Art Council International Visual Arts Committee,
56 Iben From / Silkeborg Bad and refugees
Royal Norwegian Embassy, Copenhagen, 58 Gunnar Saietz / G. Zaienz, The Exile Artist
the Municipality of Silkeborg, the Art Centre Silkeborg Bad,
60 Cornelia Schleime / Paintings
artist group PRO and anonymous contributors 62 Jeanette Land Schou / Buddies - They Always Find a Way & The Turn
64 Vicky Steptoe / Story of Ida
66 Bent Hedeby Sørensen / No Name
ISBN 87-91252-32-6 70 Le Pont Gallery, Syria, presenting the following
photographers from the Middle East:
Issa Touma-Nazem Jawish-Eman Ebraheem-Hassan Alsoud-Ayham Dib
72 Kim Wendt / The Exile Within
74 Ralf Ziervogel / The Exile of Thoughts
76 Karsten Vogel / Alienated
78 Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam / Documentary film
80 Facts about the artists and individual sponsors

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 EXILE An art exhibition with points of view

Egypt - Mohamed Aboulenaga Denmark - Karen Kjær Laursen

Denmark - Gerda Thune Andersen Germany - Matthias Köster
Denmark - Gunnar Bay Denmark - Pernelle Maegaard
Norway - Kjetil Berge Norway - Marit Benthe Norheim
Norway - Are Blytt• Per Kristian Nygård Denmark - Gunnar Saietz
Denmark - Bodil Brems India - Ritu Sarin•Tenzing Sonam
Denmark•Bosnia and Hercegovina - Nermin Durakovic Germany - Cornelia Schleime
Denmark•China - Jimbut Jun Feng Denmark - Jeanette Land Schou
Greece - Nikos Giavropoulos Denmark - Vicky Steptoe
Denmark - Jon Gislason Denmark - Bent Hedeby Sørensen
Denmark - Tine Hind Denmark - Karsten Vogel
Denmark - Nina Kleivan Denmark - Kim Wendt
Denmark - Smike Käszner Germany - Ralf Ziervogel
Germany - Kirsten Lampert Syria - Moustafa Al Yassin
Middle East - Hassan Alsoud•Ayham Dib•Eman Ebraheem•Nazem Jawish•Issa Touma

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 Tine Hind TRAFFICKING
...Danish artist, born 1953

The title EXILE brings me on to TRAFFICKING, the subject I

have chosen to work with for the exhibition at the Art Centre
Silkeborg Bad 2009. Women – particularly young women –
are cheated and taken advantage of, lured and kidnapped,
traded with and abused to an extent that I can barely com-
prehend. I do not think that we can create too much focus on
these events or do too much to try to stop them. My works
are about the tragic isolation and hopelessness to which
these people are exposed. My choosing this point of depar-
ture has to do with personal events that have been decisive
in shaping my life. If we give children the right to express
themselves and listen affectionately when they need to tell
us about a traumatic experience, perhaps such terrible acts
as TRAFFICKING will lose their footing in this world.

8 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

”Trafficking”, 2009, sewing on paper

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 Jimbut Jun Feng Three poems
...Danish poet, born in China 1965

there is a draught

there is a draught in her flat I always tease about one thing and another
the neighbour makes his perverted noise but a flower is always this one and only
she has travelled to another country it sometimes stands in her window frame
I checked my mails under its shadow, we sink in a deep of the spring
then I water the flowers in her window frame
then I walk out of the door I drag my anxiety with me in and out
I have a feeling of loss worrying about her in another country
in which a deep and dark floodtide runs
I get home I live but on the other side it must be my home
in another city there is a draught in my flat
I checked my mails
then I sit and imagine another country there is a draught in the very middle of the time
in which the green prospers everywhere on the mountain I feel her heaviness under my eyebrow
and in the field but she is in another country
yes, over there I will look at the one and only flower, and I will say I see a good picture work against a bad
that it is good and beautiful on purpose or without purpose
and deserves the best in the world I read the news of the day in the newspaper
I think that she reads the news of the day in the newspaper

10 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

***

a figure comes every evening and greets me

I enter this figure every evening and greet you
it tells me a story about the eternal goddess
inside the origin of the twilight
I tell you what is happening during the day

but the figure also is you

together with me in a dark air
while our owl sits quietly and stares

it rains in the evening

and I ask for the news about you again inside the figure
you are on an little island
and I am on another

the drops of water on the window and the dim light from the street lights
for it is from something faraway
from a story from another time
where my memory meets yours
where our dreams overlap each other
and our date is made

in the origin of the twilight

a figure comes and greets you
you see me in the darkness of the island
but it is not me
it is a poem I write to you
while I hear the wind blow
on the other Island

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 Elsinore . . . . .

I become aware of my absence with my present body

and my trace is my gaze that fixes a position in the air
the telephone rings
again it removes the veil of the invisibility of the existence
the busses go, and the shops are open
a girl passes with an ice cream in hand

soon twilight or still glowing sunshine

it stands like a picture in my mind
slightly red, slightly yellow or slightly orange
a vague picture
cuts into my vague reality

my tale is transient
I have a different urban childhood which has never been here
slightly more grey and remote
it is washed away at the same time
as my girlfriend says to me that she is wet because it has rained
I see an old man yawn on the other side of the street

12 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

I have tasted the bourgeois at a restaurant opposite the town hall
people here are not crazy, I say
they are queer, but so am I as well
besides, I am an Paki who seek approval from people

everywhere I go, I have my absence with me

I lug it with me all the way
just as the other guests of the town do with their alcohol-bottles
in streets, the town offers the ancient intoxication with all sorts of modern packaging
and ice cream

then, I look into my hazy reality

I become aware of my absence with my present body
my trace dwindles away
the colour of the town fades with its age
the clouds on sky stir and move as always
in the one or the other direction

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 Mohamed Aboulenaga The Lion
...Egyptian artist, born 1960

I always dreamt of being a lion, fearless and valiant. I

knew then that there were tribes that took the name of
lion such as Beni Assad and Ghadanfar. So many times
have I been told: “be lion hearted” and I always felt that
my masculine aspirations drove me towards being a
lion. The courageous are lions and I saw the tattoo on
Abou Zeid El Hilaly’s arm as two lions carrying a sword.
For so long I wished to wear that tattoo. I even wished I
could have two lions such as those on Kasr El Nil Bridge
standing on my doorsteps. Be a lion so that all animals
would fear you.

The lion is the jungle king. Hence, the lion, my child-

hood idol, was developing within my inner self. And it
never crossed my mind to live such a moment of op-
position between the “self-lion” developing within my
imagination since early childhood and the other lion.
For a long time the lion has been one of the symbols of
our culture: in books, folk songs as well as in liberal and
patriotic songs. But now, I live the shattering of a lion
that for long survived within my inner self. This might
be a death for a new life that is more powerful.

Thus, I saw the lion in the shape of a mummy that will

be resurrected. And I saw my powerful lion bonded
with medical tissue and wrapped in wires with a ma-
sked face, simulating thus, Horus the guardian of he-
aven or Anobis the guardian of the dead. A defeated
lion in its cage, lonely and submissive; a body with no
hope, yawning lazily like a full cat. However, looking
into its eyes, I felt scared feeling a deep historical fear
that shakes those who see through these eyes. Two
deep eyes that tell it is the next life. A life that could
be frightful.

14 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

15
 Gunnar Bay
...Danish artist, born 1939
Installation with the temporary studio/
work station of an exiled artist.
It is a room of an exiled artist – or rather a
room containing his or her items. The ar-
tist has arranged him- or herself sparingly
with makeshift items that would have
been available. The artist is not present
but absent.
There are chairs, a modest easel, finished
and unfinished paintings on the walls
and on the easel, a table. The wall has
one or more flat screens placed next to
one another, one looping images of a
window, opened slightly and acting as a
window to freedom, whereas the other
shows a film collage of televised news
reels.
This underlines the impression of capti-
vity afforded by a temporary residence.
There are objets trouvée, objets realité, a
surveillance camera.
The Exile Furniture has been fashioned
in such a way that it remains a kind ges-
ture but has a form that demonstrates
something quite different. For example
Welcome to Exile, Please Sit Down, Have
a Nice Day, etc. – written in screws in tab-
ARTIST IN EXILE - EXIT - SIT! - THE EXILE FURNITURE - WELCOM
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Artist in Exile
le top, seat, and seat back. They probably
will not stay that long, then.
There are ”normal”, rectangular works
with ”neat” standardised floating fra-
mes edged with barbed wire, nails, glass
shards, or similar to underline the oppo-
sitional nature of being in exile, i.e. dream
and reality, flight and longing, experience
of fear and anxiety, on the way from so-
mething unpleasant and on the way to
something that is hopefully better (it can
only be better? Or?). From hell to even ”Burn In Hell”, 2008/2009, painting with broken glassframe
more hell. From tolerated to intolerable.
Also sections with eyes to underline the
aspect of observation/surveillance.
The subjects take their points of departu-
re in the word EXILE and associated con-
cepts. It has been attempted to illustrate
feelings like deficiency, anger, frustration,
resignation, gallows humour, envy,
hate, sorrow, waiting, torture, per-
secution, and parts of expressions
such as: where to go?, tolerable
stay, speculating day and night, I die
a little bit every day, no-man’s-land,
a life on standby, why?, enough!
HOPE. Single. Using complete or
part sentences with inserts of eyes
(staring, inquisitive, accusing). ”Exile-Chair”, 2009, modification with screws on VICODUO-chair
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
 ”Eye”, painting (left). ”Eyes”, photoprint (right)

”The Window”, 2008/2009, video

”The Chair”, 2008/2009, painting with broken glass frame

”WHY”, 2008/2009, painting with broken glass frame ”EXILE”, 2008, painting with nails in the frame

ME - WHY - HATE - NICE DAY - BAD MEMORY - BURN IN HELL - EYES

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 Kjetil Berge TATLI MÜZiK (Sweet Music)
...Norwegian artist, living in England, born 1957

“TATLI MÜZiK” (Sweet Music) is an installation with photographic

work, sculpture and sound. The project is made with participants
Mustafa Gür and Sigbjørn Apeland.

The focal point is a photograph. It shows two naked men flying

superman style with towels tied like capes around their necks. One
of the men is of Turkish parentage, the other one of Norwegian.

The sculpture is a rainbow in threads by Mustafa Gür.

Sigbjørn Apeland has made a composition using organ and cas-

sette player. The cassette was found in the Turkish family home in
a village by the Black Sea coast. Amateur musicians perform local
wedding music using percussion, vernacular instruments, and
singing.

This recording, played in dialog with music inspired by traditional

Norwegian wedding music performed on a church organ in Hau-
gesund, Norway is the sound element to the installation.

TATLI MÜZiK in its original form was commissioned for Kulturkirken

Skåre, (Skåre Culture Church) Norway, 2008. The installation was
made for a panel discussion in Kulturkirken Skåre concerned with
homosexuality and the church.

18 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

19
 Are Blytt • Per Kristian Nygård Stealthiest State of Mind
...Norwegian artists, born resp. 1981 and 1979

Our project Stealthiest State of Mind is

commenting the relation between wealth
and paranoia. More specifically, how the
latter follows the former, and how fear
and insecurity gives expressions to the
structures that surround us. The project
consists of paintings and an architectural
model.

The model is a proposal for a house where

the exterior is designed after stealth prin-
cipals.

Stealth technology, also known as LOT

(Low Observability Technology) is a sub-
discipline of military electronic counter-
measures which covers a range of
techniques used with aircraft, ships and
missiles, in order to make them less visi-
ble (ideally invisible) to radar, infrared and
other detection methods.
[www.wikipedia.org]

The paintings emphasise the structural features of

the model and aestheticize the structures that fear
creates.

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21
 Bodil Brems The EXILE Game
...Danish artist, born 1943
”The EXILE Game” has 3 elements which in an aesthetic form offer
the spectator the possibility of making some ethical choices. A form
through which something can be learned unawares about the possibi-
lities that fate or chance bring to people:
A Painting, a Game, Videos.
1. Paintings of human shapes moving across a surface, moving away
from something towards something undefined.
2. A game ”The Exile Game” of approximately 180 x 130 cm stands. The
game is also a sculpture in 3 dimensions. It can be played by up to
”The EXILE Game”
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6 persons. A die is cast for identity, i.e. ”young man” or ”parents with
two children”. The identity will influence on the action. One moves in
the game by casting the die. Throughout the whole game there will be
threats, as told by refugees and the press. Personal moral standards will
be challenged by possibilities of choice. Rules and consequence are
tacked on to the squares, so that the passive spectator can experience
the game, just with a lower emotional involvement than the partici-
pants. The objective is to reach ”destination”.
3. Two videos. One with stills and video recordings from different
homes and the other one with wars and catastrophes, an eternal thre-
at, a human condition?
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
”Home”

”Home”

”War”

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 Gerda Thune Andersen NO PLACE
...Danish artist, born 1932

Photo: Søren Svendsen

The NO PLACE sculpture series has its point of departure in a series of bronze sculptures that I created 2002-2004.
For this series, I worked with dissolving man-made constructions and what I call the coexistence of chaotic and stable areas.
The name METASTASES came about because I imagined an internal or external uncontrolled organism that metastasises in or on
a crystalline form, i.e. the houses, making them dissolve, disintegrate, break down, erode, or overgrow into a state of collapse.

24 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

Foto: Thomas Ibsen

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 Emigrants General examples of artistic interpretations of the difficult conditions of exile
Emigrant visual art interpretation of their own fate and
their struggle for human rights
Through centuries, visual artists have had to flee because
the ruling regimes in their countries of residence objected
fiercely to either the message conveyed in their art or the
means of expression they used. We all remember how the
Nazis and the Communists persecuted and often even kil-
led those visual artists who did not faithfully and loyally
visualize the dominant objectives and ideals. Expressio-
nism and abstract art were, for example, both prohibited.
At all times and all over the world, dictators have feared
that the uncompromising nature of visual artists and their
undaunted struggle for freedom would undermine their
regimes.
Several unwanted artists managed to flee, however. In
some cases, living in another country became a very dif-
ficult destiny that would often make it hard for them to
work in those new and quite hospitable countries. In other
cases, anxieties and the feeling of being a stranger would
gradually be pushed aside and replaced by an impression
of liberation and joy of being allowed the possibility of
creating the works that were not to see the light of day at
home.
Such a fate was to befall Shirin Neshat, who was born in
Iran in 1957 under the reign of the Shah. In 1973, she tra-
velled to the US in order to educate herself as an artist. In
1979, the Iranian revolution began, barring Iranians with
residence in the US from re-entering the country. She
could, however, visit her home country in 1990. She was
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shocked by the meeting with a relentless theocratic rule,
and on her return to the US, she was confronted with the
anxieties and up rootedness of many Iranian immigrants.
They often felt at home neither in the US nor in Iran.
To begin with, Shirin Neshat worked with the frozen move-
ment of photographic images. Later, she used primarily the
living image series of film. She would often use big screens
placed in a closed square room, allowing the spectator to
experience the work without many disturbances and to
become drawn completely into her very expressive image
space. In many cases, she herself played the woman who
experiences the pain of being forced to living in a foreign
country. After years of living in another country, she has
come to know the consequences of exile.
Generally, most of her works have a point of departure in
her own Iranian Islamic background which she embraces
with much love, but which she also criticises indirectly
with a very delicate and almost fleeting poetry. She has
experienced both alienation and longing for home in the
West, but equally, she has experienced considerable arti-
stic freedom. Several Islamic countries prohibit women
from working in the public space. In the space of cognition
that she had the opportunity of creating in her filmic works
in the US, she uncovers not only the painful conditions of
exile but also the oppression that takes place in her home
county – particularly towards women. She thus points in-
directly at universal human values and a hope of mutual
understanding and respect that will support cooperation
and common ground and create equality between men,
women, and races in those countries where such equality
is not yet to be found.
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
Today, Shirin Neshat is an internationally recognised artist
who spellbinds audiences all over the world with the poe-
tic tone and magical realism so typical to her films in which
she tells of the terrifying and promising sides of her home
country. Reality and symbol, ancient Persian tradition, and
a brutal presence have been coupled together into a won-
drous whole. Her works are often composed in such a way
that almost draws the spectator into her artistic universe
where he or she can practically experience the emotional
drama that focuses on the countless opposing aspects of
the exile problem.
Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, who was born 1952 in
Beirut, was forced to flee to London when the civil war
raged in Lebanon. Man has always held a central place in
her artistic universe that consists primarily of installations.
She has interpreted and visualised various problematic
aspects of the concept of identity. Her art can presently
be admired in Danish museums as well as in museums
abroad, and it shows obvious signs of her being a citizen of
two cultures – Arabic and European. Her installations have
intensely and clearly placed a primary focus on woman’s
place in society and the difficult fate of the emigrant. She
is convinced that art can increase our understanding of the
factors that lead to oppression and war and force people
to become refugees. Shirin Neshat’s and Mona Hatoum’s
intense but very different artistic interpretations of the
hardship of emigrants and the fight for human rights instil
hope and courage with those living in exile and increase
our understanding of their fate. For the present purpose,
their works have been sought out as general examples of
artistic interpretations of the difficult conditions of exile.
In many of the works displayed at the current exhibition,
one encounters – with varying visuals and through several
fascinating artistic media – parallels to those depictions of
the problematic lives of emigrants created by Shirin Nes-
hat and Mona Hatoum.
The project from the exhibition entitled ”Exile” ”We are All
in the Same Boat”, created by visual artists Gerda Thune
Andersen, Moustafa Al Yassin, and Marit Benthe Norheim,
points out not only the uncertain conditions of refugees
but also the hope that core human values and universal
human rights can become so powerful that no one has to
leave their countries. Until that happens, it is, however, ne-
cessary that the countries in which human rights are held
in regard hospitably welcome those who have become
outcast and have no hope for the future. They arrive – ac-
tually and symbolically – in boats, and we owe it to them to
consider them our equals and to let them understand that
”we are all in the same boat”.
The ”Exile” exhibition shows a long row of exciting and
successful projects that have been realised by 35 Danish
and foreign artists. The many works and installations will
doubtlessly challenge the audience and give it a more nu-
anced view on things. This is because the form language
of visual art does hold a special intensity and can very po-
werfully appeal to the suggestion, imagination, thoughts,
and emotions of the spectator. Thus, the audience will
doubtlessly realise new aspects of the difficult life of many
of those that are forced to leave their home land. The ex-
hibition visitor will, however, also encounter the fighting
spirit of several of the emigrants and their will to create a
new life elsewhere.
Else Marie Bukdahl dr. phil.
Former headmaster at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
27
 Gerda Thune Andersen • Moustafa Al Yassin • Marit Benthe Norheim
We are All in the Same Boat
– a cooperative project with the boat and
mirrors as shared metaphors
”The passport is merely a piece of paper. When you travel, you
have to take your proper passport with you, namely your soul.
This will open everything for you.”
(Quote from Moustafa Al Yassin’s father from before Moustafa left Syria as a
political refugee 21 years ago.)
”A ship has the same symbolic meaning as a bridge – they ena-
ble access to another world.”
”The mirror image is the manifested and timely world and
man’s knowledge about himself.”
(From Symbol Lex., J.C. Cooper)
Gerda Thune Andersen.
The general idea refers to the boat refugees seen daily in
the media. Refugees denied on every border as if they did
not exist. The installation describes the sea journey, the
dream of new horizons, and the hope of reaching a safe
port. The boats have been folded from newspapers from
all over the world in all manner of languages. The news-
papers have information on boat refugees, perished or
turned away. The armada of boats sails afloat a giant wave
down through the room where they collide with the invi-
sible wall that will not let them pass. On the other side of
the glass wall, we stand as witnesses. A fragmented mirror
reveals us as we observe.
28
Moustafa Al Yassin.
A small wooden boat has been sawed into two parts with
lots of salt between the parts. Salt consists of chemical
compounds that are themselves toxic. Together, they are,
however, essential. In Arabic culture, salt symbolises family,
and visitors are given salt and bread.
– This means that the guest can feel safe and consider him-
or herself as an equal. From the ceiling hangs a reflection
of the boat shape fashioned from spoons. The spoons also
symbolise safety and home; being that it is the first tool
used by a mother to feed her child. In Syria, every child
gets its own spoon with its name on it.
The floor is covered in shattered mirrors, allowing the spec-
tator to see him- or herself in crooked and twisted angles.
An adjoining room holds poetry in writing and film.
The words are read by Moustafa himself in beautiful and
melodic Arabic – that remains audible even as one enters
the rooms to the two female artists.
”I dive as a bird – no matter if air or water
And I sail as a sword – no matter if vertical or horisontal”
(Moustafa Al Yassin)
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
Gerda Thune Andersen

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 Moustafa Al Yassin DANCING IN THE RHYTHM OF THE RED CROSS
...Syrian poet, living in Finland, born 1962

IN THE SACRED TEMPLE OF THE CHILD..... CIRCLES

I AM DANCING BEHIND
CIRCLES
APPLAUDE.... YOU GODS OF THE SKIES AND HELPLESS IS THE SUNSET
ONCE WE WERE LEFT HOW HELPLESS THE SUNSET..... NOW
AND STILL WE ARE WHEN THE WAVES TRANSFORM INTO EXILE....
AND THE BEACHES INTO GRAVEYARDS...
AND STILL THE YELLOW WIND IS PLAYING WITH US.... AND THE SEA LOOSES IT´S LANTERNS....

SING WHATEVER YOU WANT SEABIRD... OH MY SEABIRD

THE SONG HAS LOST HOPE... WHAT AN UNFAITHFUL DEPTH IN THIS SEA
BUT STILL I NEED IT ...
SEND US YOUR DREAMS AND IT NEEDS ME
AS A NECKLESS
AS HOLY BOOKS HEIGHTS
AS A PROPHET
I GIVE UP
TO PUT A COLLAR ON THE RED CROSS´ NECK.... AND I GIVE UP FROM WALKING BEHIND THE
PAIN OF THE ROAD
FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN...... HOLDING ME SOMETIMES
AND ROLLING ME INTO THE PAIN
THE FESTIVAL IS GETTING WILDER.... MOST OF THE TIME
AND WILDER
Moustafa Al Yassin
CIRCLES BEHIND CIRCLES....
CAN´T YOU SEE
THE DANCERS HAVE STRIPPED THEIR CLOTHES
AND THEY GIVE THE UNKNOWN MIGRANTS BOATS TO THE SEA

30 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

Moustafa Al Yassin

31
 Marit Benthe Norheim Woman’s Boat
...Norwegian artist, born 1960

The sculpture, Woman’s Boat in process, has been modelled directly in concrete.
The boat consists of a woman opening her womb, and men are on the way out of or into her.
She enjoys, yields, gives birth, and provides sustenance – or is used/abused.
From the ceiling over the sculpture hangs a mirror.

32 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

Marit Benthe Norheim

33
 Marit Benthe Norheim
...Norwegian artist, born 1960
The supporting idea and at the same time the inner rein-
forcement for the concrete sculptures are functioning ca-
ravans. Each of the women sculpture torsos grow from the
roof, making the caravan appear as the skirt of the sculptu-
re. Spectators can enter the 4 m tall caravan women which
are the Refugee, the Bride, Maria the Protector, the Siren,
and CampingMama. The inner spaces have been prepared
in various ways – several of them with participation of vari-
ous population groups. The refugee caravan, for example,
is filled with porcelain reliefs about fleeing – made by
children and refugee women in cooperation.
34
CampingWomen
– a rolling sculptural installation by Marit Benthe Norheim
with incorporated music by composer Geir Johnson.
The project was created for the European Capital of Culture Stavanger2008.
The caravans are moveable, arrive behind individual cars,
and have been on a constant tour of the European Capital
of Culture Stavanger2008 region for 8 months. They have
visited approximately 40 towns during this period.
In May 2009, they travel in Iceland on to the Reykjavik Art
Festival. After that, they will visit EXILE at the Art Centre
Silkeborg Bad. They will be here from June 15th - July 8th
2009.
Photos p. 34 and p. 35: Niels Fabæk
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
35
 Nermin Durakovic The Distance from and to
...Danish artist, born in Bosnia and Hercegovina 1979
In the meaning of ”living in another country”, exile can be defi-
ned as the simple relocation from a locale-specific context. The
involuntary connotations of ’fleetingness’ does, however, have a
negative ring to it, just as putting the distance separating ’the
banished’ from a country into words in itself leads the thoughts
towards a consensus concept, attaching to the linking to a place
of origin a degree of ’normality’, whereas the exile condition is
similarly shrouded by an anomaly. Thus, the concept of exile una-
voidably links itself to the state from which exile takes over; to the
image against which exile is reflected.
As exemplified by artistic installations and museum institutions,
the life and cognitive practice of a human being must be con-
sidered in connection with its immediate physical surroundings
and material context. It is the greater picture and complexity of
these conditions that combine to form the basis of what we refer
to as culture. Within a human conceptual framework, this means
that the locale-related character of the exile concept cannot avo-
id touching upon subjects such as identity and belonging. Thus,
the distance of the exile is very much linked to mental processes;
it expresses the distance to a home(country), to ones origins, to
a social context. Thus, the complexity of the concept is equally
underlined by the fact that it becomes clear that the materiali-
stic and objectified appearances of culture provides an entry for
diving into those processes of cognition that are initiated to the
individual when the state of exile comes into force.
As cultural forms of presentation, objects and materialistic ex-
pressions are at the same time a medium of and a result of a
social practice. But do we, with these manifestations, have to do
with imprints from fixed shapes, with the traces of fixed structu-
res that change their appearance purely cosmetically according
to the sediment in which they are placed? Or are the visible ma-
nifestations before our eyes remnants of a plethora of coinciden-
36
ces and changing factors, like empty holes filling and constantly
re-filling with whatever accumulates from a passing stream? The
same question, confirming the ambiguous character of culture,
diversifies the conceptual framework of the concept of exile and
thus also questions what defines the boundary between excep-
tions and the normal conditions? If the condition brought upon
’the refugee’ is that of anomaly and exception, will it then neces-
sarily be released on returning home through (re)establishing
well-known everyday practices and materialistic surroundings
on returning to the ’origins’? Or is the meeting between ’the ba-
nished’ and new places, practices, and experiences ultimately in-
dependent of this release, in that human identification in all its
rootlessness will adapt according to the new conditions?
Arguments speak against culture being based on either pure
variability or firmly established structures. Just as the work of
art should be construed in relation to the context in which it is
created, cultural means of expression must primarily find their
comprehension frames in relation to the social practise of which
they form part. The basic condition of exile as well as cultural pro-
cesses of ’normality’ are thus to be found in the reproduction: In
a constant process where interaction between existing precondi-
tions and changing factors translate into a transformation. What
materialises in the light of reproduction is a fundamental creative
force that sheds a light of existentialism on the state of exile.
A creative process, constantly developing constructions that are
close to reality and value-laden. This way of thinking does not
necessarily render superfluous the nature of exile as an excep-
tional state, but questions primarily the distinction as opposed
to normality.
Marie Krag
BA in European Ethnology
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
37
 Nikos Giavropoulos SELF EXILE
...Greek artist, born 1971
Nikos Giavropoulos’ video ”SELF EXILE” constitutes an inner in-
terpretation of the term ‘self-exile’ as a conscious choice of de-
priving one’s life. At the same time the artist challenges the tra-
ditional definition of death as the transition from existence to
non-existence. His carefully structured video sequences depict
Death not as the End but as the Beginning (Birth). Consequently
he builds a parallel, reversed universe where suicide becomes a
form of self-exile to Life.
The juxtaposition of ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ is skillfully illustrated through
the dichotomization of the screen into two horizontal friezes. On
the upper level, where ‘Life’ is depicted, the human figures appear
fully dressed as social rules dictate. Face and posture of the body
witness the protagonists’ agitation, sense of disorientation and
escapism. The latter is symbolically implied by the illustration of
signifiers of traveling. On the lower frieze Giavropoulos’ heroes
have reached their final destination: Death – Rebirth. Although
still a bit disorientated they are portrayed naked and free of social
conventions. One can detect attributes of their previous social
role or profession but these are sole reminders of their previous
forms of existence, the ones they have abandoned consciously.
38
Drawing inspiration from Greek Mythology, which is an integral
part of his work, the artist inserts in his narration the Goddess De-
meter, patron deity of agriculture, grain and fertility, as an iconic
representation of ‘Life’. Her presence strategically serves the in-
tention of the artist to demonstrate the interconnection between
the Upper and Down worlds; she performs the ancient Greek ce-
remonial act of pouring milk on the earth as an offer to the Dead.
In this video, receiver of her present appears to be Hades, who is
illustrated on the lower frieze accompanied by his faithful watch-
dog Cerberus, who is guarding the entrance to the under world.
Giavropoulos’ reversed universe is ingeniously stripped of any
sense of over-dramatization. The artist avoids embarking on the
examination of the ethical issues that arise and through an imagi-
native employment of symbolic realism he achieves a vivid digi-
tal illustration of an inverted, if not heretic, notion of self-exile.
Yuli Karatsiki
Art historian
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
39
 Jon Gislason
...Danish artist, born 1955

”TALK”

40 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

”HOUSE ON ICELAND”

41
 Smike Käszner
...Danish artist, born 1966
These days, about 6 months after the arrival of the fi-
nance crisis, the media have room for another subject.
It is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin.
Those two phenomena can be linked through the
claim that the finance crisis was brought about by a
liberalism that bases its legitimacy on a cynical social
Darwinian mindset – as opposed to a ”humane” and
religious mindset.
What if we also turn to Darwin and God in an attempt
at explaining what the finance crisis will mean to Da-
nish art?
The divine way to art
The religious take on art is one of elevating art to a kind
of surrogate religion with a view to contributing to the
need of the contemporary individual to find a meaning
and reduce complexity. As with any other religion, in-
terpretation is controlled by priesthood. The members
of this priesthood have the special disposition required
to identify the elatedness of art. Here, the priesthood
are facilitators and interpreters, i.e. primarily art histo-
rians.
The art in question must be open to interpretation. The
artists have not defined the work beforehand or other-
wise closed it to the priesthood. The art has very much
information (unclear pheno-condition) or the oppo-
site – very sparse information (clear pheno-condition).
Simplified; expressive and abstract art opposed to mi-
nimalistic and conceptual art.
The natural way to art
Opposed to the religious approach is the Darwinian
approach to art. As with religious approach, this is
often a question of creating a cult around the artist.
This, however, is the extent of any similarities. With the
Darwinian approach, art serves a specific and tangible
purpose: the tail of the peacock.
42
God and Darwin in Art
As it may be known, happiness is a relative concept. It is
not only about being rich – it is about being richer than
others. The neighbour can mimic all of your purchases
and perhaps even surpass them. All aside from one;
your art purchase. This has to be classic unique art with
the direct impression of the artist. There is only the one
copy, and it is yours.
With the Darwinian approach, art is cultivated and
purchased singularly as a means of demonstrating
capacity – like the peacock does with its tail feathers.
Through considerable ”resource wastefulness”, one
demonstrates one’s own capacity. So the more costly
the art, the better the art. If one was to say something
about art, the words of the priesthood could be re-
peated. This is, however, more or less unimportant.
When one looks at the work of art, it is actually a mirror
– one sees one’s own successful self.
It seems that the higher the level of wealth, the big-
ger the need for art. Several years of global financial
growth has created an immense need for placing a va-
lue on art. Even the Gulf State Arabs, whose financial
world has not suffered as much because their religion
forbids interest on lending, have embraced the means
of art and are now purchasing western masterpieces
with the same eagerness as demonstrated by the Ame-
ricans when they purchased art in a war-torn Europe
in the wake of the first world war. They even purchase
license agreements from ”cathedrals” like the Lou-
vre and the Guggenheim in order to ensure that their
new acquisitions have appropriate and legitimate sur-
roundings.
The remaining approach to art
Back to Denmark, however, and back to a more down-
to-earth level where we see costly art being thrown
overboard as the crisis spreads and its impact reaches
increasingly higher levels. Demonstrating capacity can
no longer be afforded like before.
And what is left when private funds have left art?
The religious approach to art. The approach that now
spreads as relentlessly as did America when she disco-
vered that she was the only remaining superpower.
It is conceivable that the religious approach to art
will naturally fill the vacuum left by the Darwinian ap-
proach. This, however, also carries with it the risk of
dissolving art. It is inherent in the religious approach
that it continuously seeks to expand the space of art
in order to enlarge the space in which interpretation is
possible and responsiveness can be established. Or, to
put it differently, art risks being dissolved in the world.
Everything can become art. It has been like that since
Duchamp turned a urinal into a work of art. This does,
however, not mean that art can become everything.
There is a difference – as Ad Reinhardt put it in a few
words: ”Art is Art. Everything else is everything else”.
If one can even partly buy into this outlined chain of
events, it is not difficult to advocate the development
of an extremely diversified and alternative art scene –
as a counterweight. As a catalyst of other events. Then,
it is about looking into art as an opposition to the
priesthood that wants out of art. Dissolution.
As a consequence, another thematic is conceivable,
namely that of intentionality. When art seeks out into
the world and becomes, in both gesture and contents,
indistinguishable from the world, art will no longer be
a question of context but one of intentionality.
Where art in the 20th century was a question of con-
text, it will possibly be a question of intentionality in
the 21st.
Smike Käszner. Copenhagen 15 February 2009
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
43
 Karen Kjær Laursen SAD RAIN
...Danish artist, born 1954

Sad Rain
physical mental space
the suitcase
an
endless sad rain
film strip
of
photographic
series multiples
metaphor
of
departing / arriving
limbo-state
in
physical-mental fragility
the suitcase
as
hidden spaces
hides, fills
and
things reach back
comfort
time
of unpredictability.

44 •• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

45
 The Exile of Art

”Little book — and I won’t hinder you — go on to the city without me:
Alas for me, because your master is not allowed to go!
Go, but in shabby clothes! – as a messenger from a unfortunate banished”
Ovid: Sorrows (34 BC-17 AD)

The celebrated author of The Loves and Transformations,
Ovid, spent the last 9 years of his life abroad on the Black Sea
shore, banished on the order of Emperor Augustus from the
Rome he loved so much. While constantly complaining and
begging to be allowed back, he sent home, for lack of any-
thing better, his poems in the form of small letters that would
ideally let him be present and be heard in some form or other
in the cultural centre where he did, in his own opinion, right-
fully belong.
As can be seen from the painting by Delacroix, Ovid’s stay with
the Scythians is a classic example of exile that has fascinated
us ever since – along with several others, of course.
On the face of it, exile is the state in which people find them-
selves when they have, for whatever reason, been forced to
stay outside their own country without having let go their ties
to their own country.
vion, and disappearance. By an absence of belonging to my
home and perhaps also by a fear of disappearing from and
to the others to an extent that eventually makes me invisible
and forgotten – makes me approach destruction.
Before his physical banishment, it was obvious that Ovid was
not unquestionably at home at the centre of politics and po-
wer. He claims to have been banished not only due to a perso-
nal ”faux pas” on which he elaborates no further, but as much
due to what he refers to as ”carmen” or a poem. Most likely,
the cause was primarily the work The Loves, a handbook in
which he mocked the emperor and the moral restoration of
the era; perhaps equally and more generally, the banishment
was brought about by the fact that the poet had, throughout
his works and his entire life, to considerable extents pursued
poetry, its demands, and its successes as opposed to morality
and its obligation, power and its appropriateness, political
and social order and their stability.

Thus, exile also means that I am placed in a peculiar interim
state. The former, relatively matter-of-factly linguistic, cultural,
familiar, and social bonds have been lost to me, but I still carry
them and the longing for them with me in my new context
without them being replaced by something else. The coun-
try I am in presently thereby receives a status of temporary
non-country, a kind of Limbo for me to pass through, a mild
preamble to Hell, where my soul is not necessarily put through
other ordeals or torments than being primarily depressed and
out of tune, considering that it is plagued by absence, obli-
Everything points to a closely knit connection between art
and exile that is also manifested thematically in the Exile ex-
hibition at the Art Centre Silkeborg Bad. The connection is,
however, somewhat deeper than the mere theme. Art holds
its own obligation, and it carries with it a departure from the
world as we know it towards something else; a departure
meaning that art is often in conflict with dominant morality,
executive powers, and the establishment. How often this has
been the case is, among other things, apparent from the pa-
pal Index on forbidden books that was updated until 1966.

46 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

This index had works by Dante, Stendhal, Hugo, Balzac, and
Flaubert banished from public circulation. Considering that
art has approached its own exodus from the very beginning,
it points to the enforced exile as a practicable possibility. Phy-
sical banishment of the artist and his works – the outer exile
– can be read as an open confirmation of the inner exile that
the artist opens – as was to become the case for Ovid.

This means that art can also require and carry with it a self-
imposed of self-chosen exile in which one distances oneself
from factors that are obviously obligatory – often as a part
of an effort to not only make this more fluent, but equally in
an effort to create a means of becoming more present to one-
self.
Eugène DELACROIX (1798 - 1863): Ovid among the Scythians, 1859. Oil on canvas. 87.6 x 130.2 cm.
Whether I produce or consume art, part of art’s ability to fa- NG6262. Bought, 1956. Signed and dated. (Photo The National Gallery, London)
scinate could be that I have the opportunity of becoming my
own exile. I have the opportunity of actively choosing the pe-
culiar interim state, the mild hell in which the surroundings
The poet Ovid is shown in exile after being banished from Rome by the Em-
and the very obvious obligations dwindle and become absent
peror Augustus in AD 8 to the Black Sea port of Tomis in south east Romania,
until a continual, dream-like, and suggestive transformation
where he probably died ten years later. According to classical writers, the na-
becomes present, allowing the world to be reborn. Once I
tive Scythians fed on the milk of mares, and in the right foreground of this
have been in this exile of art and carried through this small re-
painting Delacroix has depicted a mare being milked.
bellion, I would, like Odysseus, like to tell about what I gained
from the journey.
Delacroix had first painted this subject in 1844 as part of the decorations for
the ceiling of the Library of the Palais Bourbon in Paris. Many of the figures
Anyway, about 2,000 years ago Ovid sent the poems that
designed for that site reappear in this later canvas.
were later to form part of Sorrows and Letters from the Black
Sea back to Rome individually. He sent them as short letters
to tell of his exile, his art, and his rebellion. And this meant
that his art and the story of his exile have survived the exile
since then.

Sverre Raffnsøe
Professor of Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School

47
 Nina Maria Kleivan • Pernelle Maegaard
...Danish artists, born resp. 1960 and 1952
Working drawing for the travel agency
48
TRAVEL AGENCY WUNDERSCHÖN
A video installation. The installation has a
travel agency, a wooden shed built in the
exhibition space. A small, primitive room
that one may enter. Photography plays an
important role in the creation of the tourist
experience. It shows ”the view of the tou-
rist”. We take pictures, but it is not a neutral
act of retaining visual information. Carry-
ing out the act, we change the experience
of the location, and we change our recol-
lection of it. We go sight-seeing, we seek
out vista points, we send home postcards
with idealised and stereotypical subjects
from the places we visited, and more than
anything, we take pictures – pictures that
we can show to friends and acquaintances
later on.
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
49
 Matthias Köster Gravestone in Paris
...German artist, born 1961

It is a Russian based exile story with the portrait of the ”Hans Bellmer” gravestone in Paris, another important
”Heine” gravestone in Paris, an important famous Ger- avant-garde exiliant of the 30s. I visited the gravestones
man exilian, and a different story with the portrait of the personally.

”PARIS EXILE I”, 2008, oil / aluminium, 25 x 45 cm.

50 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

”PARIS EXILE II”, 2008, oil / aluminium, 25 x 45 cm.

51
 Kirsten Lampert
...German artist, born 1959

”Nurejew and Opieballet”, 2009, mixed media on paper, 24 x 32 cm.

”Lenin”, 2009, mixed media on paper, 32 x 24 cm.

52 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

”Solschenizyn Playing Tennis”, 2009, mixed media on paper, 24 x 32 cm.

”Lenin Diagonal”, 2009, mixed media on paper, 32 x 24 cm.

53
 A LOCAL STORY ABOUT PEOPLE IN EXILE
Artists from near and far have come to show their art at the old
spa. They may be far from home physically or figuratively, seeking
a platform for their messages to meet people and turn regular
ways of thinking a bit around. The object is to create a space for
different expressions and thoughts.
Before 1998 when the grounds became an art centre, the locati-
on had a diverse history. Originally built as a health spa, it housed
people who were, either of their own choosing or due to medical
ordination, in need of a pause from their everyday life – an exile
of sorts. A combination of elements today referred to as luxury
vacation, wellness, and refuge. The spa function was the pre-
vailing activity over a period of exactly a hundred years. 1983 saw
the closing of the facility, as the form of spa ”vacations” on which
it based were no longer in tune with the times, and people had
developed other travelling habits.
During a period following the second world war, Silkeborg Bad
housed German civilian refugees in their involuntary exile. Even
today, ageing Germans appear in search of their roots. They
might have spent time here at the camp in their youth. One Ger-
man visitor even claimed to have been born here. Most likely, he
is not the only one. After all, the refugees stayed here for over two
years. Before that, the occupational forces had used the area as a
military headquarters from 1943-45.
The German civilians had fled their country following the Russian
ingression from the east into Germany which meant that people
were driven out. Some fled on foot, others via ship across the Bal-
54
Silkeborg Bad and refugees
tic Sea to Denmark and to other parts of Germany. They would
often have spent arduous weeks in refugee convoys that would
sometimes be the target of bombing raids. Several refugee ships
were torpedoed in the Baltic Sea, and countless lives were lost.
One immense disaster was the loss of 9,343 lives when the Wil-
helm Gustloff was torpedoed and sunk within one hour in severe
freezing conditions on 30 January 1945.
Migration carried with it many inherent dangers; disease and
starvation were commonplace. A total of two million Germans
are thought to have been evacuated. 250,000 of them went to
Denmark, among them 50,000 children and more women than
men. As the potential magnitude of these civilian refugee exodu-
ses became clear, Denmark was officially told to house them. At
first, they were housed in the southern part of Jutland and at Bal-
tic Sea ports. Silkeborg began receiving its share of refugees on
15 March 1945, and more than 4,000 were housed all over town.
Occupied Denmark did not respond with undivided enthusiasm;
illegal leaflets claimed among other things that this was a ”wea-
pon of pity” now put into play by the Germans, and the Danish
Freedom Council advocated refusal of medical care to those in
distress! Food rationing spurred criminal behaviour internally
among the refugees and towards Danish store-owners, and ten-
sions ran high. Guard units were established. Many refugees pe-
rished abroad due to among other things contagious diseases,
which can be seen today at the cemetery where 308 are buried.
As early as in May-June 1945, even before the area had been clea-
red from German occupational remnants, the first refugees were
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
transferred from other lodgings to Silkeborg Bad, and a maternity
ward was set up. A regular refugee village named ”Neustadt” was
built with 32 barracks in the forests just south of Silkeborg Bad
where the old spa buildings and the old occupational barracks
were somewhat battered and were soon to be dubbed ”Altstadt”.
Before the end of the year, over 3,700 refugees were housed here.
A contemporary poster announces: Warning! Any kind of contact
with German refugees is prohibited. Loitering or any kind of traf-
fic along the refugee camp fence or in the immediate vicinity the-
reof is prohibited. Violators will be prosecuted. The Police.
The ministry had established rules governing the operation of
Danish refugee camps. The area was guarded. All supplies were
scarce; space was by no means abundant. An internal school was
set up as well as a carpenter’s educational facility, as the refugees
were not allowed to leave the area. The facility had its own prison,
and the facility commander was entitled to ”pass sentence” on
the refugees. Life in the camp was no picnic. During the summer
of 1947, however, the remaining German refugees could turn
back home, and the Silkeborg Bad re-opened as a spa in 1951.
From 1986-87, Societetsbygningen at Silkeborg Bad was once
again used as a refugee centre, albeit a more contemporary one,
now operated by the Danish Refugee Council. These refugees
were modern day refugees from Iran and Lebanon, and a few
from Poland and Ex-Jugoslavia who lived for a while at the cen-
tre. Other parts of the old spa facility were operated by the fitness
chain of Form og Figur.
In the mid-1980s, owner Kaj O. Mogensen from Odense planned
to renovate and extend the remaining Silkeborg Bad buildings to
the tune of several million kroner, and this meant a pronounced
wish to terminate the leases on the refugee centre and the fitness
business.
The Refugee Council operated a so-called introductory school
in the Societetsbygningen: offering a four-week course for re-
fugees having been granted asylum. Then, the Danish Refugee
Council would help them find other dwellings near one of the na-
tional refugee centres where the real integration process would
commence.
Stig Skovbo, who was the leader of the Refugee Council introduc-
tory school, made the following statement in the local paper: Ac-
tually, we have had a lot of feedback from locals who have rooms
or apartments that they would be interested in letting to refu-
gees. The refugees themselves have even experienced that they
encounter far less racism in Silkeborg than in other parts of the
country. Many of them have expressed an interest in being hou-
sed here when they have completed their 18-month integration
process.
Very few of them or none at all were, however, to have a perma-
nent address in the old municipality of Silkeborg or any of the
three neighbouring municipalities. At the time, a nationwide
8,000 refugees that had been granted asylum in Denmark were
without any permanent residence here.
55
 The Silkeborg Asylum Centre was housed on several addresses in
the mid-1980s. Some refugees actually resided at the Silkeborg
Bad past the four week period. This address was the last to be
cancelled as an asylum centre. The introductory school at the Sil-
keborg Bad closed in June 1987. The construction plans of the
private investor were also dropped, but by then both the Refugee
Council and the fitness centre had already vacated the premises.
Only five years later, in January of 1992, world political events
meant that Denmark would again receive streams of refugees.
In Silkeborg, this meant new visitors at the Gudenå Kurbad and
Silkeborg Bad. Danish Red Cross first established a temporary
residence at Gudenå Kurbad where 160 refugees from Iraq and
former Yugoslavia were housed in 67 rooms. It had not yet been
determined if the refugees would be granted asylum or not. Only
those who were granted asylum were ”passed on” for integration
via the Danish Refugee Council. Nina Koch, division head at the
Directorate for Foreigners, was pleased with the beautiful sur-
roundings of the centre. Asylum-seekers are often under consi-
derable pressure due to the experiences from which they fled
and due to the uncertainty surrounding their future.
In late August that same year, somewhat over a hundred refugees
from Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Bosnia arrived at Silkeborg
Bad, where the Red Cross was also in charge of arrangements and
operations. The number of lodgers then rose to 149 persons (64
of them children) in a matter of a few weeks.
56
The residences were run partly with local labour and based on
the principle that the refugees were to handle their own house-
keeping. A newspaper article from September 1992 gives an im-
pression of life at the centre and the thoughts of three refugees:
A farm worker from Montenegro explained that he ran away from
military service, his parents, and his brothers in order to avoid kil-
ling Croats, and that his family had no options where they came
from. Now, he would like to provide for his son’s education in
Denmark. Another man from a town in Bosnia had experien-
ced and participated in the war against the federal army in his
own town where both sides saw heavy casualties. He described
how the family lost their houses and his auto garage. The actual
escape with his wife and three children took place by car, and
they experienced among other things gunfire exchanges on the
border to Croatia. Later, they became aware that many other re-
fugees on their way through the country had been killed in a sta-
dium there. They managed to find shelter with relatives in Croatia
before using a two-day German transit visa to get to Denmark.
Other family members had arrived in Vejle a few months earlier.
The man also explained that the different backgrounds of the re-
fugees caused internal friction at the asylum centre.
A Bosnian woman from Sarajevo explained how she paid Serbs to
be able to flee on her own with her two children in order to bring
them to safety, and how she had for a while not heard from her
husband who had remained there.
Refugee families and individuals worked together on housekee-
ping, shared refrigerators etc. People were very talkative, some
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
wanted to lend a hand renovating
the building in order to pass time,
and a kindergarten was set up for
the small children to play in. Some
refugees were well educated, but a
third could neither read nor write.
Most of them wanted to return to
their home countries, but they were
also worried if their country would
exist at all when the war would end.
The leader then of the Red Cross
asylum centre at Silkeborg Bad, Udo
Galadrim, commented on his joy
at the local support in the form of Societetsbygningen with Red Cross flags and sattelite dishes summer 1993. Photo: Ib Hjorth

toys and Christmas presents for the refugee children as well as an

efficient cooperation with local clubs and school classes. Other
employees recall how the centre was well suited to housing as
opposed to many other locations that were merely temporary
barracks. Also quite uniquely for refugee centres, the Silkeborg
Bad was not located very far from town. Isolation is a major pro-
blem to asylum-seekers, according to the Danish Refugee Coun-
cil. Another one is the lack of structure. In late 1992, the Danish
Folketing passed a special bill regarding refugees from former
Yugoslavia, stating that only refugees having attained a ½-year
temporary residency permit would remain at the two lodging
facilities in Silkeborg and at five other locations throughout
Denmark. In Silkeborg, this meant that 160 refugees would be
relocated, some would remain, and others still from other asylum
centres would be moving in.
As the municipality of Silkeborg purchased the five old and se-
verely battered buildings in 1992 in order to create an interna-
tional art centre on the location, some buildings continued to
function as a refugee centre for a while. This part of local history
is a special background for the current work of the visual artists
with exile on this very location.
Iben From, February 2009
Director, Art Centre Silkeborg Bad
Sources: The first part of the text is based on information from Dan Mouritzsen’s book ”Gefecht-
stand Silkeborg Bad. Det tyske militære hovedkvarter på Silkeborg Bad (The German Military
Headquarters at Silkeborg Bad). Den tyske værnemagt i Silkeborg og omegn 1940-1945 (The
German Armed Forces in Silkeborg and Surrounding Areas)”, published by author, 2003. The se-
cond part of the text is based on articles from the Midtjyllands Avis newspaper from the dates
of 21.2.87, 25.6.87, 31.8.92, 12.9.92, 30.12.92 as well as on information from the Danish Refugee
Council and the Red Cross.

57
 Gunnar Saietz
...Danish artist, born 1936
A story based freely on real life.
The wind had been blowing heavily from the southwest for weeks,
and the low December sun hit the South Sealand beach where I
happened to be one afternoon. Coincidence wanted something
from me, however. As so often before, I saw some bottles in the
sand at my feet – I recognised the characteristic apple juice bottle
with its big opening. Strangely, the openings had been carefully
corked, and there was some rolled-up paper inside the bottles.
Messages in bottles! In the course of about half an hour, I found
over a hundred.
I brought them home, of course, and with ever increasing ama-
zement I emptied out their contents. It turned out to be small
paintings: Portraits, sceneries, surreal visions, and on the back a
disturbing message about the painter and his situation. The pain-
tings were excellent, very original, and deeply committed, but
the message on the back was a bit of a shock to me as I gradually
managed to ”decipher” it. It was hand-written in a combination of
Danish, French, Italian, and some fully incomprehensible words. I
did understand, however, that he was a Roma from Rumania, that
he had fled Bucharest four years ago, and that he worked illegally
at an apple plantation on a small Danish island. Oddly, his name
was almost identical to mine, and I would not be surprised if we
were somehow related.
58
G. Zaienz,The Exile Artist
His story was harrowing: The Rumanian mafia, one of the most
powerful and cruel organisations of Eastern Europe, pursued him
because of his numerous attempts at exposing its top leaders.
His wife and four children were being held hostage and survived
only because he sent away money, in complete secrecy, of cour-
se, to his brother-in-law in Bucharest, who managed, with equal
secrecy, to bribe the changing guards. Now, however, things had
gone terribly wrong. If the mafia would not receive a substantial
amount within 2 months, his wife and children would be killed!
Mr. S. had no chance of procuring such funds... hence these calls
for help per bottled message!
I decided at once to try to help him, and the displaying at Sil-
keborg Bad is the first attempt. Several auctioning houses have
also offered support. I have combined some of the paintings in
groups, whereas others will be sold separately and can be taken
along anytime during the exhibition.
(PS: Beware of very imaginative collectors who call on behalf of refu-
gees. Particularly if their names are as strange as mine!)
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
”My Sweet Niece” ”The Coca-Cola Drinker”

59
 Cornelia Schleime
...German artist, born 1953

”Und sie galoppieren weiter”, 2001, Diptych, acrylic, asphalt varnish, shellac on linen, each part 145 x 120 cm.

60 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

”Liz III”, 1997, Diptych, acrylic, asphalt varnish, shellac on linen, 200 x 160 cm. ”Liz IV”, 1997, acrylic on linen, 200 x 160 cm.

61
 Jeanette Land Schou Buddies - They Always Find a Way & The Turn (video)
...Danish artist, living in Sweden, born 1958

”Buddies - They Always Find a Way”

They could be strangers on an excursion in someone’s everyday life.
Being genuine tourists, they interpret it with a point of departure in
their own background with all the limitation of knowledge, senses,
and abilities that this entails.

Or maybe they are discoverers, progressing according to scientific

methods and collecting information and data with unbridled
optimism and curiosity. After all, everything new is interesting for
those who have not seen it before. Big discoveries in a small world –
or vice-versa.

They may even be on a mission we know nothing about.

The proportions are at stake. Both with respect to the actual figures
in the room and with respect to the meaning layer. The photo series
attempts to make this more concrete; being a stranger in the world
and the attempt at getting to know it. The images have been set in
scene like a cartoon, albeit without text bubbles.

”The Turn” (video, 2:42 mins, 2007)

In the universe of dreams, a single drive can become a significant
spiritual experience, and this dream is about who or what is in
control of your life.

Jeanette Land Schou

62 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

63
 Vicky Steptoe Story of Ida
...Danish artist, born 1952

Two works depicting two naked women. One is

white, the other black. They have only a bag, a bag
that suggests specialised, personal contents – a
story. They are refugees or emigrants. As such, they
are easy victims – a treat for the ”natives”. They are
strangers. They are ”them or the others” compared
to ”us”. Their identity has disappeared. To themsel-
ves, the last remnants of their soul is hidden away
– from prying eyes – in the suitcase or bag as a
symbol of the baggage and visualised in the work
by the 6 small stories. One senses the longing from
one place to another or from one state to another.

64 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

65
 Bent Hedeby Sørensen No name – project in several parts; various materials.
...Danish artist, born 1962

”Penetration”, 2009, photo print (Self-portrait)

66 •• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

”Penetration”, 2009, photo print (Self-portrait)

67
 Issa Touma•Nazem Jawish•Hassan Alsoud•Eman Ebraheem•Ayham Dib
...Five photographers from the Middle East - presented by the Le Pont Gallery, Syria
In the Middle East, we don’t need to leave our homeland in
order to be in exile, because we are exiled in several ways.
Mostly, it is our inability to live within our essence.
We pretend to have a healthy family life, yet there is distan-
ce between the members.
We also pretend to have a warm social life, yet, in reality,
are miles away from each other.
We can’t express our points of view clearly; We can’t see
clearly..
Trust is almost vanished among people.
We claim that we are living in Utopia.
The media is very optimistic about everything. One cannot
even hear about a car accident in the daily news. It is as
if everything bad and harsh only happens outside of our
borders.
In the photos of the participants, we will see a different
truth: pictures of workers who labors for more than 12
hours daily, with no time for outside interests, hobbies, va-
cations, or even to enjoy the simple pleasures life offers.
The 1st participant, Nazem Jawish has not had a vacation
in 15 years. He had to live with 250 other workers in the
exile that is called The Factory. Those workers do not be-
long to the perfect Utopian society.
Another example is Eman Ebraheem. As a veiled lady, her
self portraits are very daring and erotic. They represent the
big gap she feels deep inside- the huge space that lies bet-
ween the way she lives, acts, and reacts in society and the
way she experiences life within the thick walls of her own
room. Like so many other women, Eman is torn between
her family and the pressures of the society surrounding
her. She doesn’t belong to either. This is Eman’s exile.
68
Politically, I belong to a generation who grew up with one
government, one president, and have never tasted demo-
cracy in any way. We can not practice or participate in our
own political issues. The only ones concerned are also exi-
led in their high and fancy towers.
As citizens of the Middle East, we start to draw our own
red lines, predicting that this is what the superior power
wants. We can only express our outrageous matters when
the problem concerns another nation, when it’s another
society’s problem.
The 3rd participant is Hassan Alsoud, whose photos tell a
story about a poor family living primitively in the middle
of the new city. They live in a limited space without basic
services like electricity and water. They are so impoveris-
hed that they have to sell old bread to make an income.
Their children so affected by their lifestyle that they faced
problems fitting in, and are alienated in school..
The last participant is Ayham Dib, whose photos represent
the mentality of the ghetto in the modern sense, the men-
tality of the people who want to fit in among the rest and
are ready to give their voices away only for the sake of so-
cializing. Still they are haunted with the fear of what their
futures’ hold. They want belonging, yet can’t obtain it. Such
people give up their individuality in order to survive within
their surroundings. As time passes, they realize they have
been transformed into individuals far different than whom
they essentially are, causing disturbance in their character
and eventually injuries to their souls.
Issa Touma (Le Pont Gallery)
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
Issa Touma, Syrian, born 1962 Nazem Jawish, Syrian, born 1972

69
 Hassan Alsoud, Iraqi, born 1984

70 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

Eman Ebraheem, Syrian, born 1977 Ayham Dib, Syrian, born 1974

71
 Kim Wendt The Exile Within
...Danish artist, born 1970

We, as men, are fantastic – powerful, wise, strong....

Canny about emotions and vulnerable tellings,
silent about personal problems. We need
not reach out for the help of others, as
we can handle it on our own – this gives us control.
Everyday life, the air, a head full of changes,
renewal, denial, innovation, growth, standstill,
globalization, increase, decrease, idleness, emptiness,
insufficiency,
loneliness...
We feel banished, we seek exile – the exile within.

Kim Wendt

72 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

73
 Ralf Ziervogel The Exile of Thoughts
...German artist, born 1975

In his installation Ralf Ziervogel is dealing with the exile of

thoughts.

Ralf Ziervogel’s work speaks for him as a persuasive inno-

vator in the field of drawing. He broadened its dimensions
and thereby created serial as well as ornamental possibili-
ties. His designs display a gruesomely pretty frankness and
brutality - a Comedie humaine in the age of cyber space.
This suggests that the artist also succeeded in marrying
classical technology with contents that range from splatter
to comic. In his work, bodies become cleft creatures that
on the one hand reflect all imaginable metamorphoses of
human being and on the other hand, acting in a hermetic
system, encounter its limits. Richard Roarty demands the
continuation of the occidental discourse with regard to the
abdication of traditional problems, Ralf Ziervogel is pulling
out all stops and brings forward a ”pragmatic” extension.

In a very big drawing he is working with the different sy-

stem of numbers – the Fibonacci series, the six dots of di-
ces, analogue and numeric systems, etc., which use all in-
volve the risk of failure. The piece reflects the construction
of a universe, and the weakness of it. In a broader sense
he is concerned with communication, especially the risk
of loosing or failing the grasp of it between people. Also
a part of the installation introduces the idea of the cliché
through common known costumes from film or plays.

”One Song”, 2008, mixed media. Installationview: Backstage, 11th floor, Haus Eden,
(One Song Bar), Contemporary Arts Alliance and Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin 2008

74 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

”Der Kaktus hat recht” (reverse version), 2008, opalfilm, filter foil, fluorescent lamps, alu-frame,124 x 448 cm.

75
 Karsten Vogel Alienated A musical composition for EXILE
...Danish musician and composer, born 1943

Exile 2009

Away when we are at home

Home when we are away
Music must be heard
and does only that
but even:
Home when we are away

Karsten Vogel

76 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

77
 Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam
...Indian filmmakers, born resp. 1959 and 1959
A STRANGER IN MY NATIVE LAND
(1998, 32 mins, Hi8/Digital Beta)
Camera: Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam; music: Techung;
written, edited and narrated by: Tenzing Sonam. Partly
funded by the Lawrie Group plc, UK
A Stranger in my Native Land is the poignant and personal
account of Tenzing Sonam’s first-ever visit to his homeland.
From the far reaches of Amdo Province, where Tibetans
have lost their language, to Lhasa, the heart of the country,
the film captures his meetings with long-lost relatives and
conveys a sense of the desperation of Tibet as a country
under occupation.
78
DOCUMENTARY FILM
A TIBET OF THE MIND
(2009, a multi-channel video installation, ca. 15 mins)
March 2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the takeover of
Tibet by Communist China and the flight into exile of the
Dalai Lama and nearly 100,000 of his countrymen. Today,
the Tibetan diasporas is spread out across the world, and
actively upholds its traditions and culture, even as they
come under increasing threat in their own land. What
does Tibet mean for the exile Tibetans, most of whom
have never seen their country?
A Tibet of the Mind is part of a larger work that examines
the current Tibet situation and the Dalai Lama’s dilemma
in trying to resolve it through peaceful means. In this
piece, several exile Tibetans, old and young, and including
the Dalai Lama, speak directly to camera about the first
thing that comes to their mind when they think about
Tibet. The results are frank, moving, surprising and chal-
lenging in unexpected ways.
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •
79
 EXILE – participating artists

Gerda Thune Andersen. Jon Gislason.

Postal address: Haagen Müllersvej 6, 3220 Tisvilde, Denmark. Postal address: Jens Munks vej 41, 8200 Århus N., Denmark.
E-mail: gerda.thune@gmail.com • www.gerdathuneandersen.dk E-mail: joka@stofanet.dk • www.jongislason.dk
Phone: (+45) 48 70 49 88 / mob. (+45) 22 44 01 03. Phone: (+45) 86 10 19 96.

Gunnar Bay. Tine Hind.

Postal address: Egeløvsvej 31, 2830 Virum, Denmark. Postal address: Nørrebrogade 2, 2.tv., 8000 Århus C., Denmark.
E-mail: gunnarbay@dbmail.dk • www.art-jazz.dk E-mail: tinehind@mail.dk
Phone: (+45) 45 85 57 22 / mob. (+45) 20 48 57 22. Phone: (+45) 86 31 90 12 / mob.(+45) 24 25 57 20.

Kjetil Berge. Nina Kleivan.

Postal address: 361 A, Holloway Road, London N7 ORN, England.
E-mail: kiberge@dircon.co.uk • berge.kjetil@googlemail.com
www.kberge.com
Phone: (+44) 07 801 281 710.
Are Blytt.
Postal address: Fagernes 17, 5043 Bergen, Norway.
E-mail: ablytt@gmail.com • www.areblytt.org
Phone: (+47) 98 63 65 32.
Bodil Brems.
Postal address: Grønnemose Allé 31, 2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark.
E-mail: brems.hauschild@get2net.dk • www.bodilbrems.dk
Phone: (+45) 39 67 68 22 / (+45) 28 49 67 47.
Postal address: Fælledvej 14, 3. th., 2200 Copenhagen N., Denmark.
E-mail: nina@kleivan.dk • www.ninakleivan.dk
Phone: (+45) 27 26 82 88.
Smike Käszner.
Postal address: Hedebygade 34, 2., 1754 Copenhagen V., Denmark.
E-mail: smike@smike.dk • www.smike.dk
Phone: (+45) 35 34 12 52/ mob. (+45 40 75 12 52).
Matthias Köster.
Postal address:
Atelier Matthias Köester, Kölnerstrasse 170, D-40227 Düsseldorf, Germany.
E-mail: matthiaskoester@gmx.net
Phone: (+49) 211 788 50 22/ mob. (+49) 177 71 29 089.

Nermin Durakovic. Kirsten Lampert.

Postal address: Brigadegården 9 st. tv., 2300 Copenhagen SV, Denmark. Postal address: Luegplatz 4, 40545 Düsseldorf, Germany.
E-mail: nermindk@yahoo.dk • www.nermindurakovic.com E-mail: kirsten.lampert@gmx.ne
Phone: (+45) 31 77 72 72. Phone: (+49) 211 1777 949 304.

Jimbut Jun Feng. Karen Kjær Laursen.

Postal address: Falen 2A, 3 th., 5000 Odense C, Denmark. Postal address: Skovvejen 16, 8740 Brædstrup, Denmark.
E-mail: jimbut@hotmail.com E-mail: kakl@mail.dk
Phone: (+45) 75 75 28 44.
Nikos Giavropoulos.
Postal address: K. Plama 35, Athens 11141, Greece. Pernelle Maegaard.
E-mail: nikosgiavropoulos@yahoo.com Postal address: Østerbrogade 210, 4,tv., 2100 Copenhagen Ø., Denmark.
Phone: (0030-210) 211 22 53. /mob. 69 47 666 025. E-mail: pernelle@maegaard.dk • www.pernelle.maegaard.dk
Phone: (+45) 30 70 17 22.

80 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

Mohamed Aboulenaga.
Postal address: 43 Abdulkhaliq Tharwat street, apartment 16, 5. floor,
Down Town Cairo, Egypt.
E-mail: abouelnaga60@hotmail.com • www.abouelnaga.com
Phone: (+20) (0) 10 66 00 468.
Marit Benthe Norheim.
Postal address: Houenvej 52, 9800 Hjørring, Denmark.
E-mail: maritbenthe@norheim.dk • www.norheim.dk
Phone: (+45) 98 97 51 55 / mob. (+45) 22 41 14 84.
Per Kristian Nygård.
Postal address: Grensen 6, 7030 Trondheim, Norway.
E-mail: nygaardpk@hotmail.com • www.perkristiannygaard.com
Phone: (+47) 98 49 04 47.
Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam.
Postal address: E 302 Som Vihar. New Delhi 110022. India.
E-mail: info@whitecranefilms.com
www.whitecranefilms.com • www.dreaminglhasa.com
Gunnar Saietz.
Postal address: Broskovvej 12, 4733 Tappernøje, Denmark.
Phone: (+45) 55 96 55 19 / mob.(+45) 28 37 04 86.
Cornelia Schleime.
Postal address: Galerie Michael Schultz GmbH & Co KG, Christiane
Bühling-Schultz, Mommsenstrasse 34, D-10629 Berlin, Germany.
E-mail: c.schultz@galerie-schultz.de • www.cornelia-schleime.de
Phone: (+49) 30 31 99 130.
Jeanette Land Schou.
Postal address: Östra Förstadsgatan 19 A, 211 31 Malmö. Sweden.
E-mail: jeanette_schou@hotmail.com • www.jeanettelandschou.dk
Phone: (+45) 32 54 89 43 / mob. (+45) 21 47 88 38.
Vicky Steptoe.
Postal address: Niels Bohrs Allé 26, 2860 Søborg, Denmark.
E-mail: vickysteptoe@gmail.com • www.steptoe.dk
Phone: (+45) 39 69 69 48.
Bent Hedeby Sørensen.
Postal address: Enghave Plads 25, 1. th, 1670 Copenhagen V., Denmark.
E-mail: benthedeby@gmail.com • www.benthedeby.dk
Phone: (+45) 28 93 12 21.
Issa Touma - Le Pont Gallery, Syria
Presenting the following photographers from the Middle East:
Hassan Alsoud, Ayham Dib, Eman Ebraheem, Nazem Jawish and Issa Touma.
Postal address: PO BOX 10005, Aleppo, Syria.
E-mail: lepont.artcenter@yahoo.com
Phone: (00) 963 944 41 22 18.
Kim Wendt.
Postal address: Prøvestensbroen 3, 2tv. DK 2300 Copenhagen S.
Email: kim@kimwendt.com • www. kimwendt.com
Phone: +45 studio 38118313 / mob. (+45) 28118313.
Karsten Vogel.
Postal address: Asgårdsvej 7A, 1811 Frederiksberg C., Denmark.
E-mail: vogel@dbmail.dk • www.karstenvogel.dk
Phone: (+45) 33 23 34 50.
Ralf Ziervogel.
Postal address: Gipsstrasse 5, D-10119 Berlin, Germany.
E-mail: razivo@gmx.de • www.ralfziervogel.com
Phone: (+49) (0) 151 504 582 61. USA mob. 1646 478 6010.
Ziervogel’s assistant Björn Streck: bjoern@ralfziervogel.com
Moustafa al Yassin.
Postal address: Johannisbergen Tie 10 A 9, 06100 Porvoo, Finland.
E-mail: moustafaalyassin@gmail.com
Phone: (+358) 44 99 18 830.
81
 Project managers: Individual sponsors - warm thanks to:

Gerda Thune Andersen Republic of Fritz Hansen A/S, DK-3450 Allerød

Kjetil Berge Furnitures to ARTIST IN EXILE by Gunnar Bay , p. 16
Marit Benthe Norheim
Moustafa Al Yassin
The work has received support from The Danish Art Council Visual Arts Committee:
NO PLACE by Gerda Thune Andersen, p. 24
Gunnar Bay
Tine Hind
Jon Gislason The work has received support from Grosserer L. F. Foghts Fund:
Smike Käszner NO PLACE by Gerda Thune Andersen, p. 24
Karen Kjær Laursen
Gunnar Saietz Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries:
Vicky Steptoe
Videos of Nikos Giavropoulos, p. 38 (http://www.youtube.com/user/NGiavropoulos)
Karsten Vogel

Bodil Brems illux.dk 8660 Skanderborg, Phone: +45 70 25 08 12:

Nermin Durakovic SAD RAIN by Karen Kjær Laursen, p. 44
Nikos Giavropoulos
Karen Kjær Laursen Kingo Karlsen A/S, 8600 Silkeborg:
Jeanette Land Schou Travel Agency Wunderschön by Nina Kleivan and Pernelle Maegaard, p. 48
Ralf Ziervogel

Bent Hedeby Sørensen SR-Reklamefotografi ApS, 8600 Silkeborg, Phone: +45 86 81 16 22:
Nina Kleivan - Pernelle Maegaard SAD RAIN by Karen Kjær Laursen, p. 44
Mohamed Aboulenaga
Issa Touma KODA:
Kim Wendt Original music composition by Bent Hesselmann to Gunnar Saietz’s project, p. 58

Karen Kjær Laursen The National Workshops for Arts and Crafts, Gl. Dok:
Are Blytt - Per Kristian Nygård
Workshopsfacilities for Bent Hedeby Sørensen (Photoassistant: Kristina Schrøder), p. 66
Matthias Köster
Kirsten Lampert
Cornelia Schleime

Issa Touma - Le Pont Gallery, Syria

Presenting the following
photographers from the Middle East: EXILE will appear on the following websites:
Hassan Alsoud • www.silkeborgbad.dk
Ayham Dib
• www.exile-exhibition.dk
Eman Ebraheem
• www.exile-exhibition.com
Nazem Jawish
• www.pro-arte.dk
Issa Touma

82 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •

83
 • Art Centre Silkeborg Bad • 2009 •
Egypt - Mohamed Aboulenaga
Denmark - Gerda Thune Andersen
Denmark - Gunnar Bay
Norway - Kjetil Berge
Norway - Are Blytt• Per Kristian Nygård
Denmark - Bodil Brems
Denmark•Bosnia and Hercegovina - Nermin Durakovic
Denmark•China - Jimbut Jun Feng
Greece - Nikos Giavropoulos
Denmark - Jon Gislason
Denmark - Tine Hind
Denmark - Nina Kleivan
Denmark - Smike Käszner
Germany - Kirsten Lampert
Middle East - Hassan Alsoud•Ayham Dib•Eman Ebraheem•Nazem Jawish•Issa Touma
84
Denmark - Karen Kjær Laursen
Germany - Matthias Köster
Denmark - Pernelle Maegaard
Norway - Marit Benthe Norheim
Denmark - Gunnar Saietz
India - Ritu Sarin•Tenzing Sonam
Germany - Cornelia Schleime
Denmark - Jeanette Land Schou
Denmark - Vicky Steptoe
Denmark - Bent Hedeby Sørensen
Denmark - Karsten Vogel
Denmark - Kim Wendt
Germany - Ralf Ziervogel
Syria - Moustafa Al Yassin
ISBN 87-91252-32-6
• Art Centre Silkeborg Bad 2009 •