Publication gathering 49 posters representing photographs and film stills by the Danish artist. It also includes a booklet with comments by Villesen, and an essay by Joerg Franzbecker.
“Travelling through the forest in Mexico, I reread Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest, which is set on a planet covered with forest. The inhabitants of the planet have trained themselves to master their dreams. For them, dream-time and world-time are equally real. At some point, a group of earthlings arrives, intending to colonise the planet. To the locals, the invaders' dreams seem like those of a 3-year-old with no control and no awareness. Also, the earthlings use hallucinogens that send their dreams out of control.
On this planet there is no word for murder or killing, but the inhabitants realize they must either fight back or be wiped out by the invaders. One character, Selver, therefore raises an army. From the moment he decides to go to war, he is no longer able to have deep and aware dreams. He knew this would happen. Something similar happens in the novel Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy.”
Gitte Villesen
Born 1965 in Ansager (Denmark), Gitte Villesen lives and works Copenhagen. Meetings and conversations are central to her work. She documents these encounters in videos, photographic series, and installations, which are often combined with additional material such as photographs, texts, or collections of objects.
"All my works start with a curiosity toward a specific person—and how each person approaches their life, certain attitudes, their passions, ideas and dreams, and how this combines with the reality in which they live, whether that's related to gender, or cultural or historical circumstances. The work deals with stories, and an awareness of what it means to tell someone else's story. Each work is a portrait of a meeting as much as it is a portrait of a specific person. In some works, and to varying degrees, the participants are involved in the discussion about their own representation as collaborators."
