Installation view from Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
In “At fornye en by – to renew a city” a collaboration with Pia Rönicke, where we wanted to raise questions about democracy and citizens’ involvement in decision-making. The starting point was a discussion about Vesterbro, an area in Copenhagen where we both lived when the projected started. It was clear that Vesterbro was changing. The restorations and renovations of worn flats in the Copenhagen Urban Renewal Project had a great deal to do with these changes. One-room flats were joined into two-room flats. In the long term, the rents will rise. When the one-room flats disappear, families and well off singles will move into the area, while low-income, one-person households become fewer. In many ways the modernisation and raised standard are of course positive, but we ask who will carry the cost of the improved standard. We wanted to shed light on the change in the urban environment, both on what we saw as positive changes and those that we saw as problematic. At the same time, by reflecting on our local environment, we wanted to discuss the question of participation in local decision making in relation to the political situation in Denmark. In what way do the changes in Vesterbro reflect Danish society at large, in which the debates before the general election in 2001 were dominated by a rhetoric hostile to foreigners, and sometimes even by pure xenophobia?