WHO'S NEXT?
WHO'S NEXT? Is comprised of mugshots of Copenhagen’s queer community and continues the artist's investigation of the role of photography in framing and creating minorities. Addressing processes of exclusion and stigmatization, it represents an appeal to solidarity, community and respect.
WHOS NEXT? addresses the criminalisation of LGBTQ+ people in many parts of the world, at the same time as referencing photography’s role in categorisation and surveillance. The title WHO’S NEXT? is inspired by Pastor Martin Niemöller’s statement protesting against political apathy during the rise of Nazism: 'First they came for the communists/ And I didn't speak out/ Because I wasn't a communist ...'.
Each of the participants photographed in WHO’S NEXT? was taken down to the prison basement of Copenhagen Central Police Station. They were escorted past cell doors, stripped of jewellery, and had their fingerprints taken before being photographed by the artist from the front and in profile using the lighting, tripods and ink-smeared studio of the police authorities themselves.
The resulting mugshots are printed in the original police format and individually inserted in archival plastic sleeves. The archive thus provides a critical mirror of the photographic procedures related to the conventional state archive and its disciplining power. The images are also among the last physical prints to be made at Copenhagen Police Station. Since 2010 mugshots of arrested suspects have all been archived digitally.
As well the exhibition, the entire collection is assembled in a limited-edition box with Niemöller’s poem as frontispiece, enabling the project to travel across borders toLGBTQ+ communities globally, including the countries that criminalise their lives.
The book box had its international launch at The Hasselblad Foundation, where the first solo exhibition of WHO’S NEXT? was held in spring 2013.
Read more LINK TO (Louise Wolthers artikel)
EXHIBITIONS
INFO
To book the touring exhibition WHO’S NEXT? please contact KKArt through this website.
EDITION
BOOK BOX
EDITION: 250 signed box sets containing 42 photographic prints.
PRICE: 3.000 DKK / 400 €
To order a book box please contact the publisher SPACE POETRY at jf@spacepoetry.dk