The Danish Aids Foundation reached out to have a design made for their community ambassadors. The ambassadors go to events at schools, pride, conferences etc. and talk about safe sex. They needed a fun, edgy, relateable recognizable design to wear that communicated safe sex.
I had a meeting with the lovely people at the foundation to be sure of the direction we were going in, and i started sketching the moment i was back at my apartment. I started to think about the concept of "Sund Sex" (Healthy Sex) and what the combination of those two words could look like. I wanted to incorporate piercings and a custom font, and a very minimal color scheme.
I drew two different suggestions, and sent them off with some color samples and examples on t-shirts. The design that was chosen was a play on carrots that get discarded because they are "deformed" aka they have several carrot-limbs and look like little bodies. Carrots are the healthies food around, right? So when I added nods to sexualty and bodies through the piercings and stockings, it all came full circle.
The design was printed on nice cotton tshirts with bio-friendly ink, and roll-ups and conversation cards were also printed and are to be used for interacting with the audience. I am very happy with they final outcome, and so are the Aids Foundation.
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I was invited to attend the first ever Zinefest in Reykjavik on behalf of CPH Zinefest in december, and flew from Copenhagen with 6 kilos of zines to be a part of the event.
Besides me, other zine- and comicfest artists from Europe were invited, and we all came together to create a workshop for locals to create their first zine, and a talk about different approaches and challenges for the makers of zinefestivals. The workshop really played up everybodys indivudal strengths. I did a presentation in the beginning about the history of zines and their importance for democracy. During the rest of the workshop, I chatted and encouraged the participants. The workshop showed them how to fold a zine in different ways, and then we did an interactive drawing excercise to get everyone laughing and drawing with out getting stuck on what to do. Every attendee went home with their first zine in hand.
I also had a booth at the festival where people could learn more about the Zinefest in Copenhagen and buy zines to support our festival. I had a great time meeting other creators and zinesters in Iceland at Nordic House, and I am very grateful for the wonderful experience!
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I hosted an exhibition at Galleri Ørn in Copenhagen for my poetic comic "Small Pots Have Ears Too" created at an artist residency in rural Japan. The artist residency took place at Studio Kura in May of 2024, and ended with an exhibit of its own there. I wanted to bring that exhibit with the finished comic book I got printed at Spektakel Press since I got back home to Copenhagen.
The gallery was a wonderful size for the amount of work I wanted to showcase, and it had a lot of light from a big window facing the street. The gallerist and I were a great team with a similar vision for the framing of my illustrations, and the setup of the exhibit. He made custom frames for the 8 main pages of the original comic illustrations with museum-grade glass and custom wood coloring.
There was a really nice turnout of people on the two opening days, and a lovely overall vibe of people chatting and mingling. I held a speech about the experience of being at the residency and making the comic. A lot of the visitors commented on the nice riso print of the comic, and how it really added a unique touch to the comic-zine to differentiate it from the original pieces.
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I worked with Spektakel Press and CPH Zinefest to arrange three workshops that would lead up to and finish off the 10 year anniversary of Copenhagen Zinefest. We received funding from Snabslanten to buy materials for making riso trash-zines with 6 participants at a time. The first workshop was held on september 15th and it was free to book a spot.
We started off the day by giving a short presentation on the history and importance of selfpublishing. Then, we went on a walk around the neighborhood to collect trash that we then made into collages. Anna-Dea Djuraas from Spektakel was responsible for printing the collages in red riso ink, and the particpants afterwards made their second layer for their onepage-zine on a seperate piece of paper that was scanned and printed in pruple ink on the red collage print.
Everyone made amazing zines in just 5 hours, and they will be able to bring them to the zinefestival this year to trade with others and become a part of the zinecommunity.
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In May of 2024 i had the pleasure of visiting Studio Kura in Fukuoka, Japan, as a part of their AiR program. It was an amazing experience where i met so many talented artists, and had a great time creating a poetic comic about a local urban legend.
I had received money from a grant to go, and had pitched my idea of the spooky comic beforehand. When i arrived, i learned about the tale of Inunaki Village, a lonely and abandoned village calling out for strangers to visit through a payphone. If you pick up the call, you will be transported to the townsquare, where an old man will show you around and ultimately kill you. I wrote a poem based on the story, and made 8 illustrtions to go with it with visual inspiration from the local area.
The last weekend of our stay at Kura we organized and exhibit that went really well with a nice turn-out of visitors. A lot of locals could recognize the story about Inunaki and complimented my version of it.
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