Income:
Funding received: 41.500 DKK (incl. grant for housing expenses)
Ticket and bar sales: 4.500 DKK
Expenses:
Artist fee: Lasse & Nynne: 25.000 DKK
Curators fee: Sif Lindblad & Klara Li: 0 DKK
Designers fee: Alexis Mark: 12.000 DKK
Rent: 9.000 DKK
Hello,
For Tryouts’ second residency, Nynne Roberta Pedersen and Lasse B. Ondesen moved into All all all with a collective multi-work, the basis of which was Spanish poet, playwright and civil rights activist Federico García Lorca’s early play The Butterfly’s Evil Spell from 1921. The play is a tale of wrong and wronged love, interspecies love, mutuality and the lack of it, which Nynne and Lasse reimagined as a contemporary film, featuring beautiful bug costumes set in the natural landscapes of Hedehusene and Bellahøj (northwest of Copenhagen), accompanied by music from Wilhelm GLXSMR Dahl. The film included a full cast of butterflies, cockroaches, fireflies, and a scorpion, played by a collective of writers, musicians, and actors.
The film served as the premise of their project, with each week seeing the play return to its original format, performed live with one act showcased at a time. For each act, a new director was appointed. The project advanced one of All all all’s fundamental ambitions: to expand the means of hosting. We host someone so that they can host someone of their choice, allowing the invitation to continuously be passed on, in ways that extend beyond our imaginations, limits, and jurisdiction. The space was reimagined as more than just an exhibition venue, becoming a platform with weekly Brechtian Lehrstück—open for all to participate in—a site for rehearsals, film screenings, and live performances that explored the boundaries of form and function, transforming the space into a stage for collective learning and experimentation. We learned a great deal.
This format, however, also poses economic challenges. How do you justify splitting one artist fee into twenty? Or how do you even do it? And the interdisciplinary approach continues to encounter structural difficulties, particularly concerning funding. Convincing foundations to support projects that defy traditional categorisations remains an uphill battle. Despite this, we were happy to learn that Nynne and Lasse received funding for both the project and a book documenting the collective effort.
In the end, the project prompted us to reflect on Nora Sternfeld’s essay, Why Exhibit at All?, which questions the role of exhibitions and their platforms. Sternfeld considers the challenges and significance of envisioning exhibitions in 2030, stating: “To me, it is as difficult as it is important that we gain a better understanding of the implications of our work.” Her insights resonate as we continue to rethink how exhibitions can work around static showcases with dialogue, action, and transformation. This reaffirms our belief in challenging fixed exhibition formats, trusting in the process and the art of failure, and questioning the very structures that shape artistic production.
All the best,
All all all
The Tryouts year-programme, consisting of five exhibitions, is funded by:
Beckett Fonden: 50.000 DKK
William Demant Fonden: 40.000 DKK
Knud Højgaards Fond: 50.000 DKK
Statens Kunstfond: 80.000 DKK (maintenance and housing expenses)