Artist and curator, Susan Hinnum, recalls the exhibition in the following anecdote published in O - Overgadens anniversary book: Overgaden 1986-2011 (2011):

"In 1996 Copenhagen was the European Capital of Culture, and major exhibitions were held throughout the year, sponsored by funding from Kulturby 96. For once there was money circulating in the Copenhagen cultural life, and there was a more relaxed atmosphere on the art scene. This made quite a difference to an environment usually characterised by a scarcity of funds and a harsh tone. The board of Overgaden had also applied for and received funding, and they invited Tone Olaf Nielsen, Sanne Kofod Olsen and myself to each curate an exhibition. The result was Tone’s When the Shit Hits the Fan, Sanne’s Between You and Me and EXILES, which I organised.

Tone and Sanne were both studying art history and had put on a few exhibitions before. I had recently graduated from art school and had not previously tried my hand at curating. In fact, I had never even considered doing it, because I was busy with my own work and with trying to make ends meet financially. I was actually quite sceptical about the idea and considered turning the offer down, but along with the invitation came a grant for a catalogue and money to pay the artists. This was a new situation for someone who was used to exhibition projects with a tight budget, so I grabbed the opportunity.

Today most major exhibitions are curated, but this was not the case in the mid-nineties, when the curatorial form was seen as a threat to the sovereignty of the artist and of the art work. Group exhibitions in those days were often tightly curated around a theme, in which the individual work functioned more as a part of the whole than as a statement in itself. So I thought a lot about how I would approach the task, and ended up choosing a common starting point for the artists rather than the works.

In the early 1990s, more and more Copenhagen art stu- dents were choosing to spend their final years of studying abroad. At the same time, many fine art graduates were moving abroad, and it was from among these that I chose people to take part in the exhibition, more or less, because obviously there are exceptions to any rule. Kirstine Roepstorff had just begun studying at the academy, while Vibeke Tandberg was a totally unknown Norwegian artist. The others, however, all lived abroad: Henrik Olesen in Frankfurt, Ann Lislegaard in New York, Søren Andreasen and Simone Aaberg Kærn in London, Jenny-Marie Johnsen in Tromsø and Frans Jacobi in Berlin.

In retrospect, EXILES was not a great exhibition, and I have subsequently curated other, better shows, but I learned a lot. First and foremost, I found that I enjoyed working with artists in an exhibition context. I still do, and I thank Overgaden for that."