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The Tryouts
“The Tryouts” is an exhibition and performance by Filip Vest exploring themes of crisis, hope, identity, and work. It delves into the narratives we tell about ourselves, each other, and the world we live in—and considers what other stories might be possible.
The project draws inspiration from a period when the Library Hall served as the workshop of theater painter Carl Lund between 1905 and 1927. Props and set designs are based on details from Lund’s romantic stage designs, which are here reimagined and repurposed to tell new stories.
Amid stacks of storage boxes, various props and scenic elements lie hidden somewhere between dream and reality. Plexiglass smoke fills the room, a wig has turned into a bonfire, and some aluminum plants have bent out of shape in the heat. A large scenic wall displays an art film that circles around the same themes as the performance.
From November 20-30, the performance “The Tryouts” can be experienced in the Library Hall (Language: Danish). The performance enters into dialogue with classic frame stories like Boccaccio’s Decameron and the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, examining storytelling as a way to pass time, survive, or critique society. The script is polyphonic and created in collaboration with visual artist and writer Sidsel Ana Welden and writer Jihaan Yussuf.
We follow three interns assigned to clear out a theater storage room after a fire. While working, they accidentally get locked inside. To pass the time, they begin sharing stories from their lives, spinning tales from the charred remains of scenery. As they do, they navigate their own tangled identities, both small and large crises, and art’s role in society.
When there is no performance, the installation can be visited in the Library Hall throughout the remainder of the exhibition period. It plays with the theater’s front and backstage, illusion and reality, in a total installation made of MDF, aluminum, plexiglass, plastic, and electronics.
Concept/Direction/Set Design: Filip Vest
Script: Filip Vest, Sidsel Ana Welden, and Jihaan Yussuf
Music: Joakim Wei Bernild
Lighting: Rosa Birkedal
Producer: Maja Holtze Bonde
About the Artist
Filip Vest (b. 1995, DK, they/them) holds an MFA from Malmö Art Academy. Through performances, installations, films, and texts, they explore queer love, loneliness, and desire in the 21st century. By using rehearsal scenarios from the performing arts, Vest tests the relationship between body and script, examining the myriad ways we perform our identities and relationships.
Vest’s works are populated by both minor and major interactions: climate crisis and relationship crises, role-playing, apocalyptic karaoke, and reenacted kisses. A bird falls in love with a statue. A frog has a breakdown in the middle of a striptease. Characters communicate—and miscommunicate—across species and time through cell phones, walls, and windows, as they attempt to make themselves readable to each other and the world.
Filip Vest has previously exhibited works at the National Gallery of Denmark, Arken, Copenhagen Contemporary, Møstings, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Den Frie, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Roskilde Festival, Tallinn Art Hall, Manifesta13, and the Gwangju Biennale.
The Tryouts is co-produced by Rundetaarn and Toaster and is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, Ny Carlsberg Foundation, Augustinus Foundation, Knud Højgaard Foundation, Wilhelm Hansen Foundation, and Copenhagen Municipality’s Performing Arts Committee.