Benedikte Bjerre

When you step into HAL 5, you immediately find yourself in the middle of a sea of identical helium balloons in the shape of baby penguins. The installation The Birds consists of mass-produced items, party supplies; exactly the kind of stuff you buy, use, and then forget. The choice of the penguin is no coincidence: as an inhabitant of the polar regions, it is for Bjerre one of the most recognizable symbols of the consequences of climate change, driven in part by a system of endless production and consumption.

Getting warmer

For the Kunsthal, Bjerre created Getting Warmer, a text that surrounds the entire space and in which the words HOT and COLD alternate. They refer to the children's game in which someone searches for a hidden object based on the clue 'warmer' or 'colder', but also to the logic of trends, politics, and climate: what is hot today is cold tomorrow. Meanwhile, the climate is behaving increasingly less predictably: no longer rhythmically cold or warm, but fluctuating erratically.

About the artist

Benedikte Bjerre (1987, Copenhagen) works conceptually based on sociological and societal phenomena, with a practice focusing on sculpture and installation. Her work operates at the intersection of popular culture, mass consumption, and the Anthropocene, the era in which human activity is profoundly altering the Earth. Bjerre has previously shown work at Frieze London, Palace Enterprise, Copenhagen, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the MMK Frankfurt, among others. From 2019 to 2023, she was a professor at the Jutland Art Academy in Aarhus, Denmark.