Myne Søe-Pedersen: Selections (Untitled (Pinboard))

The black spots on the notice board create an abstract landscape of memories to be mapped out. The marks covering the white surface are left as reminders of what once took place, or what once was considered to have great enough position and importance to be given a place in this archival space. Nevertheless, this status has now been reconsidered; the item is removed and therefore no longer exists as something worthwhile to remember.

Yet the marks constitute a trace left to potential discovery and acknowledgment. The traces take shape according to a person’s behaviour and they live on as both intentional and unintentional tracks forming routes present as reminders of what is absent. The traces of the drawing pins remind me of a pierced ear. The earlobe lacking the earring once anticipated to decorate and completely fulfil the spot emptied out for exactly that purpose. The nudity of a pierced ear leaves me uncomfortable; to look at a naked ear with a tiny hole in it is almost like the presence of the cleansed notice board. No more messages or urgent reminders stuck to the surface. No post-it notes with sudden ideas and impulses. The attempt to wipe out a life but even if the emotional bruises and healed scars are immaterial, the body still remembers.

The random patterns created by the tiny holes make the surface appear as a dazzling starry night just in reverse colour scheme. Observed in totality the outcome of the plural spots adds to another experience than if you dive into the singularity. Some traces are better left without comments: the faded tattoo with an ex-lover’s name, the irremovable scar from a violent act… The evanescent spot of spilt water makes your clothes wet but quickly dries up and leaves no way of tracing the incident. Only the people witnessing the event know of its existence. The decorative marks as well as the less desirable stains co-exist side by side.

The hole makes you think that there is something inside – an actual content. The mark could possibly be a container for the things left behind that no one has any room for no more. Perhaps they hide a treasure or a tragedy but they hint to something already passed that it will never be achievable to revisit in the exact same form. We can only guess of which event that once actualised this place.

- Stine Hebert, curator and art historian. ©2006