PHOTO: For SUPERFLEX in the making of Western Rampart ©KØS Museum for kunst i det offentlige rum
SUPERFLEX
Western Rampart (film, Køge Station Bridge, 2018)
September 13 - November 13, 2018
Køge Station
4600 Køge, Denmark
The artist collective SUPERFLEX has produced a brand-new film for the TRANSIT. Addressing the largest border construction in Danish history, Western Rampart is based on the Western Rampart of Copenhagen as a historical construct. The rampart was part of Copenhagen’s inland fortifications, designed to protect the capital of Denmark against invading forces. It was built west of Copenhagen in 1888-92, stretching all the way from Køge Bay in the south to Utterslev Marsh in the north. With its wide-ranging topography, the rampart crosses several present-day borders between the city councils in the region west of Copenhagen, including Copenhagen itself, Brøndby, Rødovre and Hvidovre. The work is exhibited at Køge Station, the terminal of the E line that cuts through this exact area.
As SUPERFLEX show in the film, the Western Rampart is not only of interest from a historical perspective. It is also linked to a series of contemporary issues, such as the ongoing attempts to define, delineate and maintain borders. Western Rampart’s focus on the negotiation of borders or boundaries is also present in the work itself with its intersection of fact and fiction and its mix of documentary footage with more visually experimental and associative sequences. SUPERFLEX have used drones to produce the film, exploring – like several other works in the exhibition – mobile methods, i.e. methods used to investigate phenomena in flux that are themselves on the move. The members of SUPERFLEX – Jakob Fenger (b. 1968), Bjørnstjerne Christiansen (b. 1969) and Rasmus Nielsen (b. 1969) – were born in Roskilde, Copenhagen and Jelling, Denmark, respectively. They live and work in Copenhagen.
TRANSIT is a major research-based exhibition project produced by KØS Museum of Art in Public Spaces. TRANSIT explores transit sites – some of today’s most controversial and crowded public spaces – and the many people who pass through them. Experience art at stations, on the E line, and in an international exhibition at KØS.