STAGECRAFT

Several of Hannah Heilmann's works in the exhibition Stagecraft materialise as variations on a window motif. A motif that repeats itself somewhat insistently as sculpture, drawing, photogram and print. In a series of monotypes, the curtains are drawn. Outside, different versions of the same scene are played out. The scene is almost a doubling of the exhibition space. Outside is inside. We cannot escape, this is where we are. The exhibited works are interwoven in thematic loops. Climate change, the biodiversity crisis and the destruction of life worlds are omnipresent yet impossible to discern. It is a presence that takes the form of an absence, an absence of the disaster as a recognisable visual representation. Instead, it is as if Heilmann is trying to comprehend the incomprehensible by examining how the abstraction of this polycrisis registers physically and settles in us as affect and emotion. The works revolve around the complexes of existential, anxiety-filled and paralysing emotions associated with existing in a time of accelerating degradation of the planet's life sustaining systems. This is where we are, we cannot escape. Leftover food cartons and other objects recur in the works as traces of how the space for action seems limited to an endless consideration of consumption. Without the possibility of making right or good choices. The connection to the destruction in which everyday life is entangled, and the worlds that make ours possible, is too vast and opaque. "Being is always being to the other," writes eco-feminist philosopher Val Plumwood. All life is relational. The extractive logic of capitalism undermines this reciprocity, causing us to lose connection with the worlds by which we are conditioned. Extractive logics objectify and create an illusion of distance between worlds, in an ongoing destabilisation of the conditions of existence for all life. For Plumwood, a critical sensibility based on knowledge of how the local is connected to lifeworlds elsewhere can enable care for a diversity of worlds and nourish a greater planetary awareness and responsibility. The unpredictable changes in the planet's ecosystems manifest themselves as uncertainty and emotional disorientation. With reports and images of a deepening crisis everywhere, Heilmann's works offer an alternative to the endless doomscrolling we seem trapped in. They remind us that we too are fragile beings in an uncertain world. The anxiety and feelings of powerlessness, of fear and despair are familiar. These are emotions that we experience individually, yet they possess a transformative potential that can connect us. Emotions such as hopelessness and grief can act as invitations to feel how we are connected to other and more-than-human worlds, both near and far. This is where we are, together. With the possibility of meeting in a sensitive movement. Hannah Heilmann (b. 1978) holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of Copenhagen and is an associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Through diverse media such as installation, sculptural works, textiles, drawing, print, and performance, she explores our emotional connections to materials and objects, particularly clothing and consumer goods. She has exhibited at ARoS, Møstings Hus, EKKM in Tallinn, and Den Frie, and has performed at Marselleria in Milan, Manifesta 11 in Zurich, the National Gallery of Denmark, and the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius. She co-founded the artist run project space TOVES (2010-2017) and was part of the artist group Ingen Frygt (2001-2010). She has been awarded by the Danish Arts Foundation, and her works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Denmark, Kunstmuseum Brandts, and HEART – Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, the William Demant Foundation, the Danish Art Workshops, and The Practice Based Artistic Research Program under the Ministry of Culture in Denmark.