Photograph by Niels Østergaard
Load Bearing
Part of the group show Half Note Rest marking the end of Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Programme for Art in Public Space
PostGraduate Programme
Odense Concert Hall
2026
In the foyer of Odense Concert Hall, the body enters into functional mode before it emerges as an
individual. Here, movements, glances, and stops are organized within a space where multiple systems
overlap: Concert, conference, operation.
Load Bearing uses as its starting point those who already carry the space: the front-of-house staff.
The artwork consists of newly produced uniforms for those who greet and guide. When the uniforms
are worn, they come together to create a moving visual surface and become a sculpture in motion.
When they are not worn, they are left hanging on a mobile structure like a displaced presence within
the space.
The uniform takes the shape of a smock: A garment that oscillates between labour and authority,
anonymity and representation. Jacquard-woven parts translate photographic motifs of a horse into a
material, almost tactile visual surface — into something that is only partially recognizable.
Putting on the uniform does not only mean stepping into a role, but becoming part of a structure where
body, architecture, and function merge into one.
Between the structural and the sensory, a tension appears in which the body at once participates in
and steps out of the system it helps sustain.
Text by Emilie Boe Bierlich
Poster by Niels Godt