Ode to Creode

The video work Ode to Creode (2022) and the pair of sculptures Ode to Creode X (2022) and Ode to Creode Y (2022), are based on Nymann's studies of mnemonic techniques and genetic dynamics throughout history. Together, the sculptures and video engage in reflections on the relationship between genetics and memory, heritage and environment, past and future.

The artworks were created for the group exhibition Museum for Fremtiden / Museum for the Future – a visual arts exhibition and a theatre performance all at once, in which visitors become actors. The exhibition and theatre performance included artworks by Helene Nymann, Ferdinand Ahm Krag and Studio ThinkingHand and was curated by Anders Thrue Djurslev with text by Christian Lollike.

Constellation of works
O Sing _ Ode to Creode (oSOtO) (2022)
HD video, 10:47 min loop with sound, dimension variable

X ODE TO CREODE (XOtC) (2022)
164 x 158 x 72
Sand, paint metal, polystyrene, marble balls

Y ODE TO CREODE (YOtC) (2022)
164 x 60 x 55
Sand, paint, metal, polystyrene, marble balls

Credits
Cinematographer: Troels Rasmus Jensen, DFF
Colorist: Olesya Kireeva
Gaffer: Malik Thomas
Performers: Dorte Bjerre Jensen, Elijah Nagady, Kasper Jensen, Pierre Enaux, Snore Elvin
Styling and set-design: Nanna Rosenfeldt-Olsen
Costume: Prisca Vilsbol
Digital Post Production: Nordisk Film Shortcut
In-house Post Producer: Maggie Winther Hansen

Museum for Fremtiden / Museum for the Future was supported by:
Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond, Aarhus Kommune, A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til Almene Formaal, Augustinus Fonden, Bikubenfonden, Det Obelske Familiefond, Knud Højgaards Fond, New Carlsberg Foundation, Novo Nordisk, The Arts Council of Denmark and William Demant Fonden

In the sculptural video-installation Ode to Creode, video, sculpture and an invitation to sing is gathered in a quest to dream forth new landscapes – both inner and outer, human and more than human. The works are inspired the theory of the biologist C.H. Waddington (1905-1975) who laid the ground for epigenetics and evolutionary developmental biology. Ode to Creode follows his vision of the creode, a neologistic portmanteau coined by Waddington to represent the developmental pathway followed by a cell as it grows to form part of a specialized organ.

In this metamorphic vision, Waddington asks us to imagine a number of marble balls rolling down a hill and how the marbles will affect the grooves on the slope, and come to rest at the lowest points. These points represent the eventual fate of the different cells, showing us the cellular developmental process. Emphasizing that evolution mainly occur through mutations that affect developmental anatomy.

The video work O-OtC (2022), with its dreamlike logic, insist that our ability to associate naturally create temporal correspondences. A cultural transmission chain that invite the viewer to sing. The installation invites the visitor to move around in the space, joining the spinning sculptures all awhile the video work tells its surreal story of mankind only to be broken up by an archival song of movement, mutation and imaginings. 

The two sculptural works, Y-OtC (2022) and X-OtC (2022) invite us on a journey of mutated chromosomes suspended in time and space. Magnified in size, these sculptures call forth our imaginative and speculative abilities. For if we were giving birth to a new tomorrow, what mutated future would we wish for? 

The artworks in the exhibition Museum for Fremtiden / Museum for the Future presented alternatives to the sinister visions of the future which permeates our present time as it is faced with the doom of climate crisis. Museum for Fremtiden / Museum for the Future brought forth different ways to let ourselves reimagine our relationship with not only ourselves but also our age and place in history.

The works reached back to primeval times, interventions with the processes of human biology and demonstrated that humanity is deeply connected and intertwined with other organisms and life forms. Thus, the exhibition and the artworks challenged some of those fundamental values that structure how we perceive time and history, past and present and future.

Museum for Fremtiden / Museum for the Future was exhibited at Sort/Hvid Theatre in Copenhagen and Kunsthal Aarhus in collaboration with Aarhus Theatre.

Read more about the exhibition at Teater Sort/Hvid and Kunsthal Aarhus.

Artists: Helene Nymann, Ferdinand Ahm Krag, Studio ThinkingHand
Text and production: Christian Lollike
Dramaturge and curator: Anders Thrue Djurslev
Light design: Morten Kolbak
Sound design: Asger Kudahl

The publication "Museum for Fremtiden / Museum of the Future" was published by Antipyrine on the occasion of the exhibition. A readable version of the conversation between Anders Thrue Djurslev and Helene Nymann to be found here.