Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld
Wednesday 2 April 2025
7pm

In 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and #RhodesMustFall, the artist group Anonymous Artists removed a replica plaster bust of Frederik V from the Assembly Hall of the Art Academy in Copenhagen and submerged it in Copenhagen Harbor. Through this artistic happening, the artist group sought to draw attention to Denmark’s colonial past and King Frederik V’s (founder of the Art Academy) involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. This peaceful action was carried out in solidarity with artists, students, and people worldwide who still live with the consequences of Danish colonialism. However, it also unleashed a massive media storm, police investigations, institutional silencing, and attacks—but also significant solidarity. This is far from an isolated case. In recent years, artists and cultural workers in the Nordic region who challenge colonial narratives and work at the intersection of emancipatory practices, institutional critique, and global solidarity are facing censorship, silencing, attacks, and intimidations.

In this Metod talk, Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld will share methods on artistic research as a transformative and liberatory practice. Structured around the following chapters: Connecting the Dots, The Refused Witnesses, and Mapping (Un)Solidarity, participants are invited to take part in assembling fragments from the specific case and similar cases.

Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, PhD, is a visual artist, independent researcher and educator. Working across media and in collaboration with others, her work explores the framework of “reparative critical practices” that intends to create small acts of repair, resistance and interventions in the cultural archive, and to build alternative infrastructures for art and culture.

The talk will be held in English.

Metod is an ongoing series of talks about working methods within the field of contemporary art and culture.