PAst
Artist talk with La vaughn belle
and in Conversation with
Jeannette Ehlers and Mathias Danbolt
We are pleased to invite you to the artist talk Fragments and Silences
wednesday october 7, 2026
17:00–18:00
2112, Holbergsgade 20,Copenhagen
How do we remember histories that have been erased, fragmented, or deliberately forgotten? In this artist talk, La Vaughn Belle discusses her artistic practice and her two works in Beyond Tropaganda: Trading Post (2015) and Storm (2020–22). Working across installation, photography, painting, video, writing, and public interventions, Belle explores how images, objects, and landscapes hold multiple temporalities, bringing fragments of history, memory, and lived experience into new relationships.
Following Belle’s presentation, she will be joined in conversation by the curators of Beyond Tropaganda, art historian Mathias Danbolt and artist Jeannette Ehlers, to discuss how art can challenge colonial histories and shape public memory. The conversation will also offer an update on Belle and Ehlers’ ongoing collaborative project, I Am Queen Mary (2018–), the landmark monument in Copenhagen commemorating resistance to Danish colonialism in the former Danish West Indies.
Beyond Tropaganda is developed in direct dialogue with Mathias Danbolt’s newly published book Tropaganda: Kunst, kolonialisme og kampe om historien and brings together a group of artists whose practices critically engage with the legacies of colonialism connecting Denmark, Kalaallit Nunaat, the US Virgin Islands, Ghana, and wider colonial geographies.
The exhibition’s performance and talks programme is generously supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation.
The exhibition is on view through 17 October 2026.
We hope to see you!
PAST
Artist talk with Lisbeth Karline Poulsen
moderated by Mathias Danbolt
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 2026
13:00–14:30
2112, Holbergsgade 20,Copenhagen
Lisbeth Karline Poulsen is part of our current exhibition Beyond Tropaganda, developed in direct dialogue with Mathias Danbolt’s newly published book Tropaganda: Kunst, kolonialisme og kampe om historien and brings together a group of artists whose practices critically engage with the legacies of colonialism connecting Denmark, Kalaallit Nunaat, the US Virgin Islands, Ghana, and wider colonial geographies.
The exhibition presents Lisbeth Karline Poulsen’s photographic series (Dis)Respect from 2025. In the work, the artist wears a hand-embroidered nuilarmiut—a beaded collar traditionally worn as part of Greenlandic national dress—made in a color pattern that clearly references the American flag. In some photographs, Poulsen wears it with a smile; in others, it is tightened around her neck, as if to strangle her. In another, she has taken it off and holds it crumpled in her hand. Where is the boundary between choice and coercion? Created in response to Trump’s calls to purchase or take over Greenland, the photoperformance shows how geopolitical struggles for power are not only about territories and national borders, but are also felt and experienced in the body.
The exhibition’s performance and talks programme is generously supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation.
Beyond Tropaganda is on view through 17 October 2026.
We hope to see you!
Lisbeth Karline Poulsen, (Dis)Respect #2, 2025
The performance and talks programme is generously supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation
PAST
Beyond Tropaganda: Performances on Colonial Afterlives
In conjunction with the exhibition Beyond Tropaganda, curated by Mathias Danbolt and Jeannette Ehlers and on view at 2112 Copenhagen from 21 August through 17 October 2026, 2112 and Mathias Danbolt/Moving Monuments are pleased to present an ambitious performance and talks programme, including the one-day event Beyond Tropaganda: Performances on Colonial Afterlives at the historic former Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Harsdorff’s Hus in Copenhagen.
The programme is curated by Mathias Danbolt and is generously supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation.
Agenda 22 August
12:00: Introduction by Mathias Danbolt & Jeannette Ehlers
12:10: Performance by Alma Akua and Michael Domfeh
12:25: Lecture performance by Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld with David Morrow: The Christmas Report & Other Fragments
13:00-13:45: Performances of Colonial Afterlife: Panel Conversation with David A. Berg, Alma Akua, Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Jeannette Ehlers, moderated by Mathias Danbolt.
13:45-14:15: Coffee Break
14:15: Justin F. Kennedy: Albertazina: A Sci-Fi Opera
15:00: David A. Berg: Moko Jumbie Performance (outside)
15:30: Voices in the Shadow of Monuments: Tribute to Gerville Larsen, Sum more dahn uddahs (2016) outside Det Gule Palæ, Amaliegade 18
16:00: Reception at 2112, Holbergsgade 20
Everyone is welcome and admission is free
About the event
The event takes place in a building deeply connected to Denmark’s colonial history. It was here that the Danish ratification of the agreement to transfer the Danish West Indies to the United States was signed in December 1916, following Denmark’s referendum on the sale. By returning contemporary artistic practices to this historically charged site, the programme opens new artistic perspectives on histories that continue to shape the present.
The programme premieres Justin F. Kennedy’s newly performance Albertazine: A Speculative Opera, created specifically for Beyond Tropaganda. Developed as a site-specific performance, the sci-fi opera centres on Alberta Viola Roberts, who was brought from the former Danish West Indies colony to Copenhagen as a four-year-old to be exhibited at the Colonial Exhibition in Tivoli in 1905. She never returned to the Virgin Islands, but died of tuberculosis at the age of 15 and was buried in Copenhagen on 31 March, 1917—the very day Denmark transferred its Caribbean colony to the United States. Combining speculative fiction, music, performance and archival research, Kennedy transforms her story into an act of remembrance that bridges Danish and Virgin Islands histories through a queer and speculative lens.
Alongside Kennedy’s new commission, the event also features performances by Alma Akua and Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, a Moko Jumbie stilt performance by David Berg, a performative city walk with Voices in the Shadows of Monuments (Barly Tshibanda, Nanna Elvin Hansen, Jupiter Child, Sirí Paulsen, and Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld), and a conversation between the contributors and Mathias Danbolt and Jeannette Ehlers. Together, these contributions create new encounters between artists from the US Virgin Islands, Ghana, and Denmark, extending the exhibition’s exploration of colonial histories through live artistic practices.
