Tell it the way they tell it

Conceptual performance • Video installation • 15 min. loop • Cph, Denmark • 2009

What is it to see and be seen in a cultural production context?
"Tell it the way they tell it" is a video installation by Danish visual artist Jette Hye Jin Mortensen. Jette Hye Jin Mortensen hired a filmcrew to visualize her ideas for a new project. Here she performed accordingly to their formal and aesthetic decisions, overruling any objections she might have had. The curator made the final decisions about the installation. Of course Jette Hye Jin Mortensen's thoughts and hands are very much in the project, but rather filtered and distorted. What you see if therefore not solely her artistic vision (if that is ever the case..) but rather the cultural apparatus behind. The title is appropriated from Trihn T. Min Ha's book "Woman, Native, Other".

On demand of the filmcrew I was invited in as choreographer to choreograph a sequence for a smaller ensemble of dancers appearing throughout work. I related the sequence to a musical score, that was sent to me prior to the shooting.