Solo exhibition, 1 Royal Terrace, Glasgow

Drawing on a recent residency with The Danish Institute in Athens this exhibition has emerged out of a wider and ongoing endeavour. Over the last couple of years Jorgensen has been travelling through cities within and on the edge of Europe. By way of gentle invocation of distant and recent events in text, sound, sculpture and found material, Riotous exuberant green and the dutiful beating of one’s heart draws on dream logic and the elasticity of storytelling, allowing for the enormities addressed by Jorgensen’s task to seep through the conduits of her own much smaller observations and memories.

Talks program

9 June, 7pm HOUSE VISIT
A gathering with artists Conor Cooke, Birthe Jørgensen, Emil Lillo, (HOUSE VISIT) and Belinda Gilbert Scott, Sarah Kenchington (Katy Dove’s Caravan) and Cristina Garriga (My bookcase).

HOUSE VISIT has arisen out of necessity and friendship. Finding themselves in an increasingly hostile economic and political climate, Conor Cooke, Birthe Jørgensen, Emil Lillo, Joanna Peace and Iede Reckman have been drawn to look at the history, debate and contemporary practice of self-organisation in arts communities. Each are interested in re-imagining how as artists they can organise their lives, and set up ways to come together and do this re-imagining collaboratively and collectively. HOUSE VISIT is currently on an eight month long residency at Katy Dove’s Caravan by Claylands Farm near Balfron.

11 June, 7pm Contact Zones
A conversation with Dr. Elwira Grossman (Modern Languages and Culture, Glasgow University) and Professor Rebecca Kay (Social and Political Sciences, Glasgow University)

Over the past year linguist Elwira Grossman, social scientist and GRAMNet (Glasgow Refugee Asylum and Migration Network) co-founder Rebecca Kay and Birthe Jørgensen have been discussing ways of working together with a group of asylum seekers/refugees/migrants over a prolonged period of time in order to explore the possible materiality of language in relation to geographical displacement. Can you create zones within which all who enter become active co-authors across linguistic and cultural barriers?

20 June, 7pm Apocryphal Theatre, London 2005-11 and beyond
A (skype) conversation with American writer, theatre director and playwright Julia Lee Barclay-Morton

Between 2005-11 Birthe Jørgensen worked as a core member of the cross-disciplinary company Apocryphal Theatre directed by American playwright Julia Lee Barclay-Morton. She was invited to be and to find out what it would mean to be a ‘live visual artist’ making fast sketch like propositions live on stage, sharing those tender moments when things come into being rather than finished static sculptures. Since the company dissolved in 2011 both have returned to practices of their own.

Barclay-Morton is currently completing her first book The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani, which is based on the lives of her grandmothers, both born during WWI before women could vote, and who cut two very different paths through the 20th Century. Using a combination of Dick and Jani's own words, spoken and written, documents, photographs, research, memory and imagination, this book is a study in contrasts between the soul crushing cost of Dick's conformity versus the price of Jani’s flamboyant rebellion.

Jorgensen and Barclay-Morton will discuss their work together and how it has influenced where they are today. The talk will include readings of extracts from some of Apocryphal Theatre's productions as well as from Barclay-Morton's new book.

22 June, 7pm Jetties: It was spring when I was in Athens
A performative conversation / improvisation event with writer Madeleine Campbell and dancer Laura Gonzalez.

Jetties is a collaboration between writer Madeleine Campbell, dancers Laura Gonzalez and Marta Masiero, visual artist Birthe Jorgensen and sonic artist Bethan Parkes. Their work explores the potential of staging translations of poetry and prose by the Algerian Author Mohammed Dib (1920 - 2003) across languages as well as disciplines, in order to address current issues of exile, migration, loss and identity. Born in Tlemcen, Algeria, Mohammed Dib is widely regarded as a founding father of Algerian literature. Expelled from Algeria in 1959, he has always written in French - the language of the coloniser. Sources that have informed Dib’s writing range from pre-Islamic Odes and twelfth-century Attār Neyshābouri’s Conference of the birds to the works of Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf. His oeuvre has been described as a ‘hymn to cultural exchange’.
Generously supported by PAR Scotland

26 June, 7pm Looking in and looking out
A chat with artist Sogol Mabadi and Exhibitions Director and Curator Jenny Brownrigg

Some months back curator Jenny Brownrigg told artists Sogol Mabadi and Birthe Jorgensen that they should have a look at each other’s work. They meet and liked each other’s company so much that they decided to continue talking for at least one year. They invited Brownrigg to visit them frequently to see how their conversations evolved. Join the three of them for a conversation about a looking in and looking out.

Riotous exuberant green and the dutiful beating of one's heart was developed through a residency with the Danish Institute in Athens.