I Trust You

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE

The performance I TRUST YOU starts after a stormy collaboration between director Daniel
Norback and a Russian art activist. It has been years in the making but has suddenly collapsed.
Out of the crises emerges a remarkable tale of trust.
I TRUST YOU takes you on a journey into a milieu of Russian artists and activists who oppose
the war in Ukraine and the regime in Russia. Through SMS correspondences, audio
recordings, and letter exchanges with friends of imprisoned artists, the performance explores
the courage needed to criticize the Russian rule. What gives the strength to continue when
the repercussions are daunting, and who can be trusted?
Danish visual artist Seimi Nørregaard has created an installation that contains a reconstruction
of an old St. Petersburg living room, which both serves as the performance scenography and
an exhibition in its own right. The Russian cellist and noise artist Marina Karpova improvises
the score for the performance.

I TRUST YOU had a great impact on it ́s audiences. The partly interactive format and the
touching stories of freedom, resistance and humanity, speaks very direct to each individual.
The audience is guided from station to station, there is no use of fixed audience seating. After
the performance, the exhibition is open for the audience to explore. It contains of both visual
work and text work as well as the installation itself. There is additional material about the art
works and artists through QR-codes. In Copenhagen the exhibition was open daytime.

ABOUT NORPOL

NORPOL creates performances that move between theater, journalism, and installation art.
The group is interested in global politics and artistic investigations. Pressing social questions
are incorporated into a personal, playful universe, where themes such as authenticity, power,
and shifting identities often are at play. The relationship between the performer and the audience – and between the performer and the work – is central and open to negotiation.

Daniel Norback is the artistic director responsible for producing text, concepts, directing, and performing on stage.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Daniel Norback, Performance and Direction

Daniel Norback (DK/SE) is a performer and the artistic director of Norpol. He is working with biographical material, interweaving personal stories and geopolitics. He combines playful genre experiments with questions concerning human rights and European identity. He studied visual art, theatre studies at Stockholm University and attended Nordic Theatre School in Aarhus, Denmark. He founded Norpol in 2003.

Seimi Nørregaard, Installation

Seimi Nørregaard (DK) is working in the fields of visual art and performance, making large scale immersive installations which integrates audience participation. Seimi Nørregaard has presented solo exhibitions and performances at Jordens Hus (Vridsølille Fængsel), Sorø Kunstmuseum, Overgaden, Brandts Klædefabrik, Kampnagel/Hamburg, South Bank Center/London, Live Art Action/Cameroun among others. Seimi Nørregaard has been part of all Norpol performances.

Marina Karpova, Sound artist

Marina Karpova (RU) is a composer, teacher, and sound researcher. She makes field recordings, plays cello and piano, writes music in code as well as traditionally. She has written music and done sound design for performance pieces, and videos. Marina studied Music Theory at Glinka Music Secondary School in Smolensk, Musicology at Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory, and Composition at Saratov Sobinov Conservatory. She lives in Estonia since 2022.

Jörn Burmester Wium, Dramaturg

In his artistic and organisational practice, Jörn Burmester Wium often straddles the borders between theatre, visual art, and social practice. He founded B&W Art and Support in collaboration with Dorte Burmester Wium to frame social situations that open spaces for creating in common and collaborative learning.

Alexandra (Sasha) Skochilenko, exhibited visual artist

Sasha Skochilenko (RU) is an interdiciplinary artist working with noise music, drawings and video. In 2014 she wrote the graphic novel Book About Depression, which was translated into several languages. In 2022, she was one of the first people in Russia to be arrested and charged with a criminal offense under the article 207.3. After 2,5 years in prison she was released in 2024 through an international exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West.

Katya Muromtseva, exhibited visual artist

Katya Muromtseva (RU) is a visual artist with background in philosophy and stage design. Her lyrical-conceptual works investigates personal as well as political memory through imaginative forms of documentation. She has had solo exhibitions at the MHKA Museum, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, XL Gallery, Art Front Gallery and Echigo-Tsumari Triennial among others. She lives in New York since 2020.

Maria Morina, exhibited visual artist

Maria Morina (RU) is an interdisciplinary artist. She works with a range of media, from photography and video to writing. Her long-term projects often revolve around space and power like the project “Grozny: Nine Cities” (2009–2018), an extensive study into the changes in post-war Chechnya. She is at the moment collecting an archive of social media posts related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.