Once I was a Human

Follow Kristoffer Akselbo’s new outlandish creature that has taken up temporary existence near Den Frie and in the streets near Østerport.

Tickets: Performancen er gratis og åben for alle. Ingen booking er nødvendig.

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE

The performance piece Once I was a Human examines dehumanization and survival in a world, where traditional human existence has become unsustainable. Find and follow the performance character, which takes form as a humanized animal-like creature that wanders near Den Frie and in the tunnel systems under the streets. The creature is trying to find ways to communicate with the world, as norms and languages directed by humans seem to have lost their meaning. The animal-like behaviors of the characters express a state of self-isolation in a situation of despair, as they experience that a constant mode of adaptation has replaced the hope of returning to a safe and familiar life. The movement of the characters through the city is set as a repetitive pattern – a compulsive retention – in the attempt to create coherence and control. The performance examines how we might need to enter the future by altering ways of being and creating other types of communication, as we face new challenging dimensions of climate crises, societal collapse, and personal grief. How do we, both as individuals and as a society, adapt to the irreversible transformations necessary to live in a world, where all basic human norms are to be confronted and transformed. 

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kristoffer Akselbo works both sculpturally and performatively in his artistic projects. He expresses himself in many different media and often processes conventional boundaries that are current in society or arise in the meeting between art and its recipients. Recent exhibitions include Deep Forest Artland (DK), Inter Public (DK), Kunsthallen Kongegaarden (DK), Den Frie Udstillingsbygning (DK), Skjold Contemporary (DK), Copenhagen Contemporary (DK), Statens Museum for Kunst (DK), SAK Kunstbygning (DK), Vega Arts (DK), Kunsthal Aarhus (DK), Cabaret Voltaire (CH), IAC (SE), Musée d’Art Moderne & Palais de Tokyo (FR), Les Brasseurs (BE), OS Artcologne (DE), Brown Gallery (UK) and Flux Factory (US)

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PERFORMANCE BULLETIN

Den Frie and Toaster presents the upcoming performance festival The Performance Bulletin, which will take place June 5-8 2025. Together with Danish and international performance artists, we investigate how situational performance pieces can introduce alternative ways of engaging and experiencing contemporary art.  Formed by artistic actions that disrupts our attention and opens the senses, the program asks what kinds of imaginations can be activated through embodied, situated, and processual performances.

The program is based on close collaborations with artists, who experiment with everything from feminist openings of symbols and monuments in the city, to collective dance ecstasies, vocal performances, joints dinners, performative explorations of the city’s infrastructure,s and traffic hubs, to as well as performance pieces that slow down the paste pace and enhance our sensitivity. Improvisation and movement are central forces in the program, which experiment with access and negotiate of the use of the public space. Celebrating the unexpected, indeterminate, and estranged impulse of performances, the program tests public attention and social processes by the happening of art.

The program is curated by Iben Bach Elmstrøm in close collaborations and dialogue with the artists and the, Toaster and Den Frie curatorial teams. The program is generously supported by New Carlsberg Foundation, Bikuben Foundation, Danish Arts Council and Roskilde University.