HOPE & FEAR by Charlotte Haslund-Christensen in Beijing
HOPE & FEAR in Beijing
HOPE & FEAR is a large scale video installation by Charlotte Haslund-Christensen. It features hundreds of people from seven countries on six continents. Each of them answers the same two universal questions: What is your biggest hope? and What is your biggest fear?
Over four years artist Charlotte Haslund-Christensen has travelled the world filming the answers to these two questions by 250 people in seven global capitals on six different continents.
Teachers, street hawkers, policemen, artists, priests, shamans and imams, children, teenagers, parents and grandparents all speak directly to the viewer.
HOPE & FEAR opened in Danish Cultural Center, Beijing, on Saturday November 3, at 15.00. On Sunday November 10 @ 15.00 Charlotte Haslund-Christensen will give an artist talk in Danish Cultural Center.
Watch a teaser for the video installation here:
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
“In a global climate of increasing fear my work is motivated by the drive to question cultural stereotypes and investigate the mechanisms of defining ‘the Other’. This includes challenging the role of the media in generating exclusion and stigmatisation – in framing and creating prejudices and minorities. HOPE & FEAR gives people the chance to have a voice, to speak out. My biggest hope is that they also speak to each other.“
The hundreds of interviews have been made with the generous assistance of local people in each country and the following foundations and art institutions:
The Danish Arts Foundation, Copenhagen Culture and Leisure Committee, Film Workshop Copenhagen w. Morten Kjems Hytten Juhl, Fotografisk Center, DGI byen, KKArt, Haslund Film, George & Emma Jorck’s Foundation, Minister Erna Hamiltons Grant, L.F. Foght Foundation, S.C.Van Fonden, ØKs Fond, Bodil Pedersen Foundation and L. Zeuthens Memorial Grant.
The work has been made possible thanks to the hospitality and participation of: The European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, DEDI – The Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute, Nafasi Art Space, Danish Cultural Center China, and Where Where Art Residency, China.
