UNGDOMSHUSET
The house and the house-that’s-not-there-anymore is the central emotional trauma from which my narrative unfolds. It’s from this symbol that the collective emotional energy of both/all sides in the conflict surrounding UNGDOMSHUSET springs. Hatred, rage, bitterness and righteousness. Engagement, belonging, sharing.

UNGDOMSHUSET was given by the mayor of Copenhagen to a group of squatters, the so called BZ, back in 1982. After a long series of violent fights and general trouble with the very active movemnet of squatters, the city of Copenhagen wanted to calm the situation down by giving the BZ a house to develop their special branch of punk-culture in. The strategy didn’t really work and trouble, squatting and street-fighting continued. The house was there to stay though, and all thru the 80s and 90s it became a central platform for the alternative punk- and activism-culture in Copenhagen. Following a controversy with the users about a fire and the general condition of the building itself, the city government decided to close it down and sell the building in 1999. It is from this point in the history of UNGDOMSHUSET that my narrative starts. A labyrinthic story of strange politically motivated sales, religious fanaticism, and wild violent hatred. But also a story of how a heavy traumatic loss thru collective activism is transformed into ’temporary autonomous zones’.

These two first pictures portray the house and the missing house as dark dramatic sites. Utilizing a figurative format inspired by agit-prop, and Chinese landscape-painting (how does inspiration actually work?), I intend to present the two places as flat cartoon-like props, but also as dramatic platforms; sites that attract and facilitate emotional identification.