A call for self-reflection in a time of identity crises with growing tendencies to construct and emphasize ones own roots both personally, nationally and politically.

NATIONAL UDSTILLING (National Exhibition) is a choreographic installation that relentlessly progress through and annex museum spaces. The performers bodies move at an unsettling slow pace constantly producing mesmerizing and ever changing tableaux.

With an allegoric contemporary national dress in its centre the work poses reflections on mono- culture, national pride and national branding. Large discoloured flags are spread across the museum and offer ambiguous expressions of celebration and violence.

National Udstilling takes the deliberate international branding of ‘Denmark’ and ‘New Nordic’ as a case study and draws parallels to national romanticism and the nationalistic uprisings that swept across Europe in the second half of the 19th century. Reemerging tendencies that previously led to catastrophic consequences.

It is performed over a period of four hours by six contemporary dancers among museum visitors to the bare sounds of bodies, dripping saliva and steps amplified by purpose made percussion- sports-clogs.

National Udstilling was initiated by KASPERSOPHIE from a starting point in design and craft and created in collaboration with invited choreographer Martin Forsberg. It premiered at the National Gallery of Denmark in January 2018.