I am Kerstin Bergendal, visual artist, born 1957 in Sweden, but based in Copenhagen since 1984. I use drawing, photo, video and methods of pure play on the one hand, and durational strategies for critical intervention and participation on the other.
My work intervenes with the logic of a place. This also means, that the place and its locals, professionals and institutions also intervenes with me and thus with the art project, making it an unpredictable reciprocal and simultaneous ping-pong process. The discursive platform that eventually might grow out of such an exchange, aims at cultivating an existing local agency and improving conditions for joint local action with point of departure in the spectrum of critique on, utopic ideas about and hopes for the site.
The collaborative side of my work also comprises short term collaborative events and exhibitions with colleagues, the co-curating of the artist-run research platform TAPKO 1991–2005 and currently LOKAL. In 1996–2002, I headed the transforming phase of one of Europes oldest artist run public galleries, OVERGADEN, towards becoming a Institute of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, Denmark.
I have served as member of the committee for art in public spaces at the Danish National Arts Foundation from 2008-2010, and as a member of the Board of Kunsthal Århus from 2017-2019. Currently, I am Senior Lecturer at Academy Valand at Gothenburg University, in Sweden. I regularly engage in the public discourse on the role of visual art in relation to the wider contemporary society, and have produced and contributed to research projects within this field.
kerstinbergendal 