DO YOU THINK WE’LL WAKE UP TOMORROW? in collaboration with author Maiken Abildgaard

Over a one-year period, author Maiken Abildgaard and Linda Hansen took turns sending challenges to each other.  Linda would send a photo to Maiken, who answered with a short text (one sentence). Then Maiken would send a text (one sentence) to Linda, and Linda would answer with a photo. These are not paired reciprocal illustrations, but rather personal associations.

The works are founded on Maiken and Linda’s everyday lives and the problems that each of them has gone through over the course of the year. The idea is that, in the works, they describe everyday life in a recognisable and general way. They use fragments from the lives they are living right now, in the belief that they are addressing something that we all experience and are affected by.

 The topics in this collaboration focus on the open and inquisitive individual. Human emotions such as anxiety in various guises, alienation, insecurity and a longing to belong and find one’s place, both in relation to one’s self and as a pair are expressed through text and image.

The works illuminate the shadow sides of being human, as a contrast to the neatness and pursuit of perfection that has become a tendency in late modern society. The fragility of modern man, which constitutes the other side of the society we live in. 

Together, the works play with concepts of ‘fantasy’ and ‘reality’. Sometimes it is easier to escape into a fantasy world, rather than be present in one’s own life. And, where does the boundary between fantasy and reality lie?

Is it all about the neurotic human being on the verge of a mental breakdown or have dramatic events REALLY taken place? It is up to the viewer and reader to form their own interpretation of what has been depicted.

Conscious?