By Kirstine Schiess Højmose, Fotografisk Center
NORDIC EXCHANGE – INNER AND OUTER LANDSCAPES
Artist presentation: Ditte Knus Tønnesen

In August 2014 Fotografisk Center will present the exhibition Nordic Exchange – Inner and Outer Landscapes showing five young Nordic artists working primarily with photography: Tonje Bøe Birkeland (Norway), Anni Leppälä (Finland), Johan Bergström (Sweden), Ingvar Högni Ragnarsson (Iceland) and Ditte Knus Tønnesen (Denmark).
The exhibition is the first project in Fotografisk Center’s new network Nordic Exchange – a network project made to help facilitate exhibitions, collaborations and exchanges between young artists working with photography.

For more info on exhibition and network take a look at this previous blog post: https://blog.photography.dk/2014/02/08/nordiske-udvekslinger-indre-og-ydre-landskaber-nordic-exchange-inner-and-outer-landscapes/

Ditte Knus Tønnesen:

Ditte Knus Tønnesen was born in Aarhus, Denmark, in 1982. She lives and works in Copenhagen. Tønnesen graduated from The Glasgow School of Art (UK) and Kyoto Seika University (Japan) in 2008. For more info: http://www.ditteknus.com/.

Knus Tønnesen works with photography, video, objects and installations. Working in a field between images and spatial constructions she tests and investigates how different interpretations and world views becomes the accepted understanding of things – and how our understanding of ‘reality’ depends on our context, culture, religion and political standpoints. With a great understanding of the qualities and histories of different materials she mixes materials with a strong aesthetic outcome. She works with photography in a much conceptual way – and tests, questions and expands the medium.

Together with Amalie Bønnelycke Lunøe Ditte Knus Tønnesen runs the non-profit artist run exhibition space GREEN IS GOLD in Copenhagen. GREEN IS GOLD shows local and international artists working with diverse practices, and publishes books as well. http://www.gigstudio.dk/

A sample of Ditte Knus Tønnesen’s work:

In the works shown here Knus Tønnesen creates a spatial environment for the photograph and for our experience of the photograph. One of the works shows a mountain but looking closer we notice that it is the backdrop of a mountain placed in a ‘real nature setting’. In the same way the installation of some of the other works looks like a backdrop construction. She makes the photograph crawl out from the two dimensional wall into the three dimensional space – and in the same movement she questions the ‘photographic reality’ and also questions our consideration of nature as something ‘real’ and ‘not-constructed’.

 

All images copyright Ditte Knus Tønnesen.