BIO & CV

Signe Vad, kunstner, kurator og klimaaktivist

BIO (English below)

Signe Vad (hun/dem) arbejder som kunstner med systemkritik og fremadrettet tænkning, med muligheden for at blive medskaber og med ideer for hvordan vi forestiller os anderledes systemer. Hun mener det er i transformationen, vi kan udfordre formater og finde nye repræsentationsformer. I arbejdet benytter SV de åbninger som spirer frem i lige nu og finder samarbejder med kollegaer, klimaforskere og aktivister, om åbninger hvor indsigt og sanseerfaring kan gå sammen og vise nye veje.

Kunstnerisk arbejder SV med at intervenere betragteren, f.eks. i sin udstillingspraksis når kæmpe blødrøde kødbilleder, som bryder ind i betragteren og både tiltrækker og frastøder, kortsluttes vore tillærte systemer. I det format bliver det sansede rum grænseoverskridende, ærligt og direkte. Fordi indlejret i det sanselige er en ikke-sproglig intervenering, som forbinder betragteren med sit organiske udgangspunkt og fællesskab. En fælles forbundenhed SV mener er nødvendig, for at omstille vores livsform til en fremtids-holdbar samfundskonstruktion.

Signe Vad arbejder kollaborativt, laver konstruktioner af organismer, der som myceliet bebor naturen, sværmen, flokken, en flok som billede på ny global kollektiv struktur – en ny krop? Hvor svaret bliver stykket sammen af os som fællesskab.

Signe Vad er grundlægger og part i kunst- og interventionsgruppen the Syndicate of Creatures (www.tsoc.zone), initiator af kunstprojektet Office of Emergency (www.ooe.zone), samt sammen m. Nanna G. Henningsen initierer performance-platformen Voices og Pythia (www.voicesofpythia.zone). Hun har tidligere drevet de kunstnerstyrede udstillingsplatforme KRÆ Syndikatet (2017-19), Udstillingsstedet TYS (2014-15), Galleri Signe Vad (2005-07) og I Skabet (2007-11). Er med tSoC partner i Creative Europe projektet Artist-Run Network Europe og er med til at initiere Artist-Run Research Center.

Uddannelse og relevante certificeringer
MFA, School of Photography, Göteborg Universitet 2009

ISC, Post Grad, Artistic pedagogy, Valand Academy, Göteborg Universitet 2010

Udvalgte performances, projekter og interdisciplinære værker

Der er ikke flere dukker i skabet - vi lever med svampene, Performance, Vestjyllandsudstillingen, JANUS - Vestjyllands Kunstmuseum, 2024.
Courage, Performance, dec 2023 til programmet Performance & Soup, Tårnby Park Studio, and nov. 2023 in Astrid Noacks atelier: Performance art on geo politics and climate Justice, Fundraiser for Gaza. 2023

KUNST/UTOPI/NU 1-5 Fem seminarer/workshops 2022-23 Fabrikken For Kunst og Design

Degrowth Festival, to-dages festival med oplæg, workshops og kunst, Kulturhus Island Brygge sep. 2023.

7 forskellige performances fra projektet Død over Dødsstjernen marts 2022 - marts 2023: Vartov, Fabrikken Open, Enghaveplads, Klimafolkemøde, Klimax festival Køge, Vestjyllandsudstillingen, PerformanceRum. 2022-23

Institut For Organisk Kunst, udstillingsplatform i en montre som flytter rundt. Det har været 6 udstilling er pt. 2022 – 23

Voices of Pythia – online udstillingsplatform med documentation af alle 16 performances fra Pythias Stemmer. (www.voicesofpythia.zone) 2022

Office of Emergency, Aktivistisk klima kunst projekt, Kbh Feb 2020 – 2022 (www.ooe.zone)
Pythias Stemmer – taler til tiden. 16 performances I offentligt rum. 2021 – 22

Corridors of Voices – time to speak up and listen to the birds – workshop, installation og performance SMK Artweek 2021 

Hvem Spiste Af Solen – Performance, Gul Festival, Country Town. Aug 2020

Pythias Journals, Monomedia online festival. Maj 2020

How Do We Deal with the End of the World – tSoC workshop, Plovdiv juni 2019.

Samtidskunstens Radikale Manifester, Kbh Læser. Med Mycelium og Laboratoriet for æstetik og økologi, KRÆ 2018

There are No More Dolls in the Closet, Performance, Supermarket Indenpendent Art Fair, Stockholm, 2018 og Berlin 2017

Selde Seriøst TV, Skulpturlandsby Selde 2017 – 21 (https://seldeseriosttv.wixsite.com/minhjemmeside)

KRÆ syndikatet udstillingsplatform og gruppe 2017-19

It is in the nature of beginnings performance, Black Box Gallery, København 2016
24 live shows for Serious TV 2015-16
Monitering – web-surveillance of Love alley, deltagelse på Marianne Jørgensens udstilling, Den Frie, København 2013
Monitering – web-surveillance of Love alley – Århus / København and Torpedo18 (http://torpedo18.dk/vaerkerne/signevad/index.html) 2012

Seneste soloudstillinger 

2023 COURAGE, SOL NEXØ, Nexø Bornholm, DK
2023 Blodår Dødeår, Foto- og tekstudstilling, Linie 14 og Støberiet kulturhus, Kbh N, DK

2021 All These Bright and Hazy Mornings – Break on Through to the Other Side, VSA Galleri, Gøteborg SE

2020 Triptykon of Disbelief – The Earth Say Hello, Martin Bryder Gallery, Lund SE

2019 Death to the Death Star – I Don’t Want to Move to Mars, Staldgade 74, Kbh DK

2018 Unknown Malware Delivered, Martin Bryder Gallery, Lund SE

2017 There Are No More Dolls in The Closet, Only A Respirator, >TOP Schillerpalais, Berlin DE

2016 Homo Carnõsa, Galleri Fagerstedt, Stockholm SE

2016 Selv med hænderne over dynen er jeg den farligste på min vej, Martin Bryder Gallery, Lund SE

2015 Vi har kaos i os, Udstillingsstedet TYS, København DK

2013 Engang var alle gale, seperatudstilling – Galleri Kontor Projekt, København
2013 Vi har opfundet lykken, seperatudstilling – Black Box Gallery, København
2012 Dagen fik alt til at skifte, seperatudstilling – Black Box Gallery, København
2009 Positions of Infinity, Peter Lav PHOTO GALLERY- solo exhibition
2009 Terminal Instability, Galleri Monitor – solo exhibition - Göteborg, Sverige
2009 Black Box Gallery – solo exhibition – Linz, Østrig
2008 While we Swallow Deception, Galleri Image - seperatudstilling – Århus
2007 What do you Mean by that Metaphor, Senko Studio – seperatudstilling - Viborg, Danmark

Seneste gruppeudstillinger  

2023 Økosystemisk Frihedskamp, gruppeusdtilling Biokuben, Kulturhus Islands Brygge  –  Largely (not wholly), Fabrikken For Kunst og Design  –   Vestjyllandsudstillingen, Tistrup, DK  – Drømme om Lys, udstilling Degrowth Festival, Kulturhus Islands Brygge

2022 Mykologisk Salon, Fraktal, Skørping – Hør! udstilling m lydkunstner Morten Poulsen MX3, Aalborg – Vestjyllandsudstillingen Janusbygningen Tistrup. – Klimax, Klimafestival, Køge – LUFT, Kunstpunkt, Berlin.

2021 Memoirs of the Abyss: Three Ecologies and More, SixtyEight Art Institute, Kbh  –  Countrytown, Byens kro, Kbh –  Vestjyllandsudstillingen, Tistrup, DK  –  Break Down, Mayhem, Kbh – Kollegialisme, Fabrikken for Kunst og Design, Kbh
2020 Vestjyllandsudstillingen Tistrup, DK – Catastrofe FBudstilling under OoE
2019 100, Galleri CC, Malmø, SE – Dela gärna - Please Share, Alingsås Konsthall, SE – Meat and Mysticism, Noysky projects, Los Angeles, US. – SKITSER OG VÆRKER, Fabrikken for Kunst og Design, Kbh. – Works on Paper, AIM Plovdiv, BG – WESTERN & COUNTRY, Country Town, Dybe, DK. – Vestjyllandsudstillingen, Tistrup, DK.  

2018 The Potential of Printed Matter, KRÆ, København, DK. – Supermarket independent Art Fair, Stockholm SE.

2017 A Hymn for the Slaughtered Pig, KRÆ, København. – Samtaler uden ord, Byns hegn, København – Vi Tager Intet Ansvar, KRÆ syndikatet

2016 Abracadabra, Wroclaw, Polen. Det argumenterer vi ikke for, Staldgade 74, København – Aginst the wall, Water Tower Art Fest, Sofia Bulgarien – V-dollar, contrytown/Hygum kunstmuseum, Lemvig.
2014 What should have remanied secret, has come to light, Fotogalleriet Format, Malmø. Læsehjørner TYS, Kbh. – FRAMES 2014, slideshow udstilling, GI 2014, Glasgow
2013 Territoriet, deltagelse på Marianne Jørgensens udstilling på Den Frie, København – GO WEST, Venø Galleri, Venø – GO COUNTRY AND WESTERN, Hygum Kunstmuseum, Lemvig
2012 Max A5, Kontor projekt, København – Gruppeudstilling, Torpedo 18 på Alt_Cph 12, København – Next stop Mallorca , Binisalem, Mallorca
2011 Perspectives On Black & White, Peter Lav gallery, København – We have always been here before, Galleri Rotor, Göteborg, Sverige – Screaming from the mountain , SKMU, Kristiansand, Norge – Nouvel Organon, Paris, Frankrig – Spesial Nord , Galleri Trafo, Asker, Norge – IN MY BLUE, BLUE, BLUE JEANS, KONTORprojects, København
2010 Darkcurrents, Fotogalleriet, Oslo, Norge – Private View, Artillerie, Berlin, Tyskland – Ars Electronica 2010, Black Box Gallery, Linz, Østrig
2009 Centrum för Fotografi, Stockholm, Sverige – Göteborg Konsthal, gruppeudstilling, Göteborg, Sverige –Gruppeudstilling, Fotografisk Center – København
2008 Allingsås konsthal- gruppeudstilling, Allingsås, Sverige – Black Box Gallery, Linz, Østrig – Galleri Spark, København – Galleri Pentimenti – minipresentation - Philadelphia, USA – Militær, Galleri Signe Vad –I skabet, København
2007 Galleri Rotor, Göteborg – Songs From the Basement, København – Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris – The National Museeum of photography, the Collection Show, København – Seehstücke, Passentin, Mölln, Pasewalk, Tyskland – New journal, Møstingshus, København
2006 På Vej - gruppeudstilling - Galleri Nakke Hage, København – SIDESHOW, Galleri Signe Vad, København
2005 Forårsudstillingen, Charlottenborg, København – Kompilation, Demo-Rum, København – K.E, Den Fries udstillingsbygning, København – RØD ZONE, Galleri Signe Vad, København – VENUE, Galleri Signe Vad, København
2004 Kvinder stiller skarpt, Grevinde Danner, København – Forårsudstillingen, Charlottenborg, København – UNG - socialt projekt, Uturn og Øksenhallen, København
2003 Making Eyes, Fotografisk Center, København – UNG – socialt projekt, Københavns Pædagogseminarium og Familie og arbejdsmarkedsstyrelsen, København.

Curation and exhibition work

2024 Regenerative Fællesskaber del 1 og 2, performance program og performativt spiseevent, Åbent hus, Fabrikken For Kunst og Design og ART MATTER Festival
2024 Degrowth Festival - Solidaritet, samfund og spirende fremtider, Kunstprogrammet på Degrowth Festival, Kulturhuset islands Brygge
2023 Degrowth Festival - Dybe rødder, utopi og økonomi, Kunstprogrammet på Degrowth Festival, Kulturhuset islands Brygge

2023 Drømme om Lys, udstilling Degrowth Festival, Kulturhus Islands Brygge

2023 Økosystemisk Frihedskamp, udstilling og performance/workshopprogram, Biokuben, Kulturhus Islands Brygge

2022 - 23 Institut for Organisk Kunst, platform for organic exhibitions, co-curated with Nanna Gro Henningsen

2021 - 22 Voices of Pythia, 16 performances in public space, co-curated with Nanna Gro Henningsen

2020 Pythias Journals, a 4 day online monomedia festival during first Covid lock-down, co-curated with TR Kirstein

2020 Catastrophe, Facebook exhibition during corona – Pythias Journals, online monomedia festival, co-curated with TR Kirstein

2019 Meat and Mysticism, Noysky projects, Los Angeles, US. Curated in collaboration w. Michelle Appelros.
2017 Extremophiles 1 - A perfectly rational response to an insane world. KRÆ, København. Curated in collaboration w. Michelle Appelros.
2017 - Founder- and part of KRÆ syndikatet - the Syndicate of Creatures
2014 -15 Artistic director and founder of the ExhibitionspaceTYS
2013 Curator for Det fynske Kunstakademis exitshow
2012 Curator for Afgang12, Det Jyske Kunstakademis exitshow
2010 Curator for Alt_Cph 10 In Space, Fabrikken for Kunst og Design
2009 Curator for Alt_Cph 09, Fabrikken for Kunst og Design
2007-11 Artistic director Galleri I Skabet
2007 Curator of New Journal på Møstings Hus
2005-07 Artistic director Galleri Signe Vad

Other relevant projects etc.
Board member for SiS Selde, Text about ”A platform Proposal” for a publication about the artist Javier Tapia 2011 – Board member for Museet for Fotokunst , Brandts Klædefabrik 2011 - 13 – Board member for BilledKunstner Forbundet 2010-14 – Board member for Værkstedet for Fotografi 2005 - 07 – Moderator for several paneldebates and meetings at Supermarked Independent Art Fair in Stockholm 2011 - 15. – About self-organisation, lecture and debat inviteret by Valand Academy (SE) at Glasgow International, 2014 Jury-member KE 2014 – Lecture w. Meira Ahmemulic at the international conference “What is the common” Gøteborg Universitet. 2009 – Partner in the international project AIM 2010-2016.

Samlinger og legater
The Danish Art Council Collection – National Museum for Photography, the Royal Library – Hygum Kunstmuseum, Lemvig – Skåne Region Konst udvalg
Robert Frank Stipendiet - Fogtals Fotograf Pris – Akademirådet arbejdslegat 2013 – Peter, Ingrid og Ralph Hernöe's Almennyttige Fond 2014 – BKF Hæderslegat 2014 – Anne Marie Telmanyi født Catl-Neilsens fond 2015, Anna E. Munchs Legat 2017 – Bisballe Prisen 2022 – Statens kunstfond arbejdslegat 2012, 2021, 2022, 2023 og 2024.

Publikationer
Own publications: Gag Reflex ”Dear World Here is Our Response” CD collaboration with Michelle Appelros – The Paper, newspaper, Black Book Publications 2016 – Jeg faldt ud af flyet, en vildfaren dannelseshistorie af Signe Vad, Poetry, Istedgade Boghandels Forlag 2012 - What do you mean by that METAPHOR, Artist book Black Book Publications 2010
Selected Journals: Podcast interview The Untergang Armchair 2018 (https://www.culturalbandwidth.com/cultband/a-sense-of-things-ft-signe-vad-119?fbclid=IwAR3JJq1nEOa_G9aneH5Ha8CRxsCNnUX6J2kS5j_y22tGF9EjX4pjZpRiOjQ) – the AIM Network 2017 (http://signevad.dk/aiminterview.pdf) - Spesial Nord Nr. 3, 2011 – Ord&Bild 4, 2010 – Den Blå port nr 85 – Senko 01 – New Danish Art 09 - New Danish Art 08 - Katalog 19.2 2007 - Filter 1 2007 – FOIL_IANN 1 – Militær 1-4

Links
www.signevad.dk
Videoer: https://vimeo.com/user20333477/videos

Seriøst TV Selde: www.seldetv.dk
the Exhibition Space KRÆ syndikatet: www.tsoc.zone

Office of Emergency: www.ooe.zone

Voices of Pythia: www.voicesofpythia.zone

English Version

Bio

Signe Vad. Born and based in Copenhagen, DK.

Signe Vad (she/they) is an artist focused on systemic critique and forward-thinking, exploring the potential for co-creation and envisioning alternative systems. She believes that transformation allows us to challenge existing formats and discover new forms of representation. In her work, SV seizes the opportunities that are emerging right now, collaborating with colleagues, climate scientists, and activists to explore spaces where insight and sensory experience converge, opening new pathways.

Artistically, SV seeks to intervene in the viewer’s experience. For instance, in her Homo Carnosa exhibitions, where giant, soft red, meat-like images intrude upon the observer, simultaneously attracting and repelling, disrupting our sensoric systems. Embedded within this sensory experience is a non-verbal intervention that reconnects the viewer to their organic origins and sense of community. SV believes this shared connection is crucial to reimagining our way of life and moving toward a regenerativ societal structure for the future.

Signe Vad works collaboratively, growing organisms that, like mycelium in nature, represent the swarm, the flock—a metaphor for a new global collective structure. Perhaps a new body, where the answer is pieced together by us as a community?

Signe Vad is the founder and member of the art and intervention group *The Syndicate of Creatures* (www.tsoc.zone), the initiator of the art project *Office of Emergency* (www.ooe.zone), and co-initiator, along with Nanna G. Henningsen, of the performance platform *Voices of Pythia* (www.voicesofpythia.zone). She previously ran the artist-led exhibition platforms *KRÆ Syndikatet* (2017-19), *Udstillingsstedet TYS* (2014-15), *Galleri Signe Vad* (2005-07), and *I Skabet* (2007-11). Through tSoC, she is a partner in the Creative Europe project *Artist-Run Network Europe* and is involved in initiating the *Artist-Run Research Center*.

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Signe Vad works with the strange, the erotic and the grotesque as lifeblood; in a poetic dialectic that criticizes the peculiarly hostile systems of power and superficial lifeless structures. She explores and examines existential, political and philosophical issues; where-from her artworks about self and community, nature, co-existence and political conditions grow. She is engaged in climate action and works actively with degrowth advocacy and ecofeminism, as part of her artistic pratice.

SV works with courage and the relation to action against power- and destructive structures. In her performances she uses her experiences as non violent civil disobedience activism, to reflect on the soft and solid resistance, when she use her body as an element for blocading against business as usual. Her project Death to the Death Star - A sensoric resistance movement, play with a position where the resistant can be soft, the opposite of the hard suppressive power hierarchies. 

She works from a perspective where the body and nature are elements of a common world; where the idea of kinship across species is essential to balancing the ecosystem; where the body responds intuitively to a sense of industrial alienation and contorts in screaming configurations; where natural elements become allusions to a forgotten relationship to our living planet.

Vad works with the body, our skin, flesh and cells as the organic nature closest to us humans. The body becomes a tool to eclipse our classifications of gender, stereotypes and human norms. For Vad the body becomes a metaphor, a piece of flesh, a piece of nature, the artworks declare metaphorically that human and body, like other wild nature, cannot be classified into petrified concepts.

Her works often function on two plans a personal/bodily access to being-in-the-world and a comment on how we relate to- and create the common world. Her art practice is multidisciplinary and includes photography, video art, installations, web stream art projects and performance.    

Vad have done several solo exhibitions and group shows from 2003 till now. Her work has been shown in Nordic countries, Europe and in the States. She works mainly with the media's photography, video and installation but has the recent years extended her practice to a variety of interdisciplinary art projects such as the live stream TV channel Serious TV (2014-15), Selde Seriøst Tv(www.selsdetv.dk) (2017-) and Office of Emergency(www.ooe.zone) (2020-).

Since 2005 Signe have as part of her artistic practice worked as an independent curator based in the self-organized artist-run scene. In 2005 she opened her first exhibition platform Galleri Signe Vad, a non profit gallery in Copenhagen from 2005-2011, and from 2014-2015 she ran the exhibition platform TYS. Latest from 2017-2019 she has been the initiator of a group-based exhibition and venue platform KRÆ  Syndikatet in the meatpacking district of Copenhagen.

From 2010 SV have been an active partner in AIM Network, A European project for the artist-run scene (www.artistsinitiatives.com).

and from 2020 - 23 with been part of the Creative Europe project Artist-Run Network Europe

and engaged in Artist-Run Resource Center