People: Interview with Artist Ditte Knus Tonnesen

Ditte Knus Tønnesen (born 1982 in Århus, Denmark) is an artist working with photography, drawings, objects and installations.
After having graduated at Fine Art Photography from The Glasgow School of Art, Scotland in 2008, she founded the Green Is Gold Studio in 2011.
The studio is an artist-run, non-profit exhibition room in the old part of Copenhagen together with fellow artist Amalie Bønnelycke Lunøe.
Ditte told us more about her art and her work.

Chased: You grew up in Denmark in Århus, now you live and work in Copenhagen. How did you get into art, and did your family and friends influence you on your way of becoming an artist?
DKT: I guess you can say that I was born into the arts, since my mom is a painter and my dad a writer.
When I was little, I loved to visit my mom in her studio, which was a space full of crazy uncommon stuff. Her studio was in the back-building in a part of town which, back then, was poor. In the same building, a local theatre group had all their props and stage decorations stored in huge stacks, rows and piles everywhere. It was a wonderful fantasy world, where I could go on explore and get lost in my own imagination, with a fast exit back to the known and “save” world where my mom would stand painting.
It was a little bit scary with pigeons suddenly starting to fly from their indoor nests and mice running into their holes.
Since both my parents were artists, there was always an opening, exhibition, theatre play or concert I went to as a child. I am very thankful for that today, but back then it was not always something I thought of as fun.
Yes, I think that my family has a lot to do with what I am today.

Chased: Your work often seems to be centered around the concept of reality…  Is it a theme you find particularly relevant and important to communicate to the viewer? And if so, why?
DKT: Yes, that’s right. I find it very important to keep getting these wake up calls (and to communicate them) about what reality is and how one can, should or will think, act and understand. There is still a big need for us (especially in the Western part of the world) to become stronger in accepting and practice that there is no up without a down.

Chased: Several of your projects have taken place in Iceland.  How come?
DKT: Growing up in Denmark, I believe that the biggest gift one can get is to meet wild nature. Iceland was for me the first place were I meet nature and culture, without an ‘in your face’ religion hanging around. It was also the first time I really met wild nature so powerful that no phone call could open the roads from snowstorm or volcano eruption.

I guess I first developed an interest in that country after my dad became sober after a Minnesota treatment there. That was big. And he would send me postcards with pictures and stories about the Icelandic nature, myths & people.

Chased: I’ve got the impression that the installation of your piece is very important, is that true? And if so can you elaborate its importance?
DKT: It is very important for the art piece that it’s being completed with an optimal installation, since this is for me, a part of the work it self.

Chased: In your opinion, what makes a good art project?
DKT: A good art project is when the concept, execution and form say more than just the idea itself. I guess that is the problem with a lot of work that the idea is still stronger than the piece. Well, often it’s a long journey to get there. And an idea is still good, even if executed bad.

Chased: You run the exhibition space Green Is Gold, in Copenhagen in collaboration with Amalie B. Lunøe. How did you get the idea to start Green is Gold, and how did you come up with this name?
DKT: Amalie and I both studied at GSA, and when we meet in Copenhagen a few years it was a natural extension of our own art practice to open up a project room. I guess we missed the heart-blowing, daring, non-fashionable art scene from Glasgow. In Green Is Gold we strive to show art projects that share the same energy.

The name is taken from the Robert Frost’s poem: Natures’s first Green Is Gold
Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Chased: What are you seeking to achieve with Green is Gold?
DKT: First, we are seeking the change to show quality art projects, that can move people and help to develop the Danish art scene and the country.
Second, we are seeking the change to give the opportunity for local and international artist to exhibit and work in Copenhagen.

Chased: What are you working on at the moment?
DKT: At the moment I am working on tree different projects. Two of them are in collaboration with Asle Lauvland Pettersen, a Norwegian artist and scenographer. One project is about two twin cities, Seydisfjordur in Iceland and Melbu in Norway, which have lost connection and now our goal is to bring them back in contact.
The other is about forgotten art – why art gets forgotten and what happens when an art piece is no longer is in contact with its audience.
It’s quite a big project involving many people, which is something new and exciting for me. We have been traveling to work on these projects the last six months, and been in two artist in residencies: Skaftfell Center For Visual Art, Iceland and MoKS Center for Art & Social Practice, Estonia.
As a third thing I am also working on a solo Classical Conversations. which I shall produce at the Danish Art Workshop in CPH and exhibit at the projectroom Holodeck in Oslo, Norway late summer 2013.

Chased: What are your hopes and dreams for the future?
DKT: No war -more love, and that we learn to live as different individuals all together.

Detail of:
Iceberg
[107 x 107 cm, Scan of Polaroid, Lamba C-print, 1/5]
© Ditte Knus Tønnesen

Experiment #2 © Ditte Knus Tønnesen

Experiment #1 © Ditte Knus Tønnesen

Mark by the Sea
[Lamba BW-print, 107x107 cm, 1/5]
© Ditte Knus Tønnesen

Installation view at Four Boxes Gallery
© Ditte Knus Tønnesen

Installation view:
Palm Spring, doublet / Fra een til en anden.
[187 x 106 cm, scan of analogue negatives, injek color prints, 1/5]
© Ditte Knus Tønnesen

Installation view at Green Is Gold © Ditte Knus Tønnesen

Foreground:
Into Something Real
[25x40 cm, water, seaweed]
Background:
Bathing Jetty # 3, Coming Out, Getting In
[165x400 cm, ink on paper]
© Silja Leifsdottir and Ditte Knus Tønnesen

Exhibition View © Ditte Knus Tønnesen