Installation shot. Photo: Anders Sune Berg 05/05

A city begins to burn as you move through the blacked-out gallery, and a total installation draws you into a world of poetry and destruction. Like a theatrical performance in three acts, dramatic films and pictures unfold around you as you make your way through a war zone, a refugee camp and an urban space to the sound of a captivating choir.

In his first major solo exhibition at a Danish art institution, Jakob Jakobsen (b. 1965) will visualise aspects of our recent contemporary history and challenge the role of the image as a political tool and phenomenon in today's society. In the exhibition, the Territory, the Camp and the City are studied as scenes of current political conflicts and pictorial representations which influence the shaping of attitudes in society. The Territory will be examined through a documentary on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Camp via pictures from the 2008 Close the Camp demonstration against the Sandholm Refugee Centre, and the City on the basis of images of the district of Nørrebro in flames on the nights of the 1st and 2nd of March 2007, following the storming of the Youth House.  

Jakob Jakobsen's exhibition confronts the bombardment of the public by images created by the media, artists and filmmakers, and the ways in which these images affect us. Wars and conflicts are often expressed in the form of a struggle to control images. Like a modern history painting with a dreamlike character, the exhibition depicts a society falling apart. But out of the tragedy grows the hope that something new can emerge ...

In addition to the actual exhibition, Image Politics also encompasses two books, a film programme, a seminar and the play AFKAK, which takes the form of a bus trip through the city, in collaboration with The Royal Theatre. For more information, see: billedpolitik.dk