TORILD GJESVIK: LISE HARLEV, 2004
While still a student, Lise Harlev began creating works that manifested a considerable interest in language and text. Her exhibitions often consist of posters, leaflets, flyers and other text-based materials affixed to walls or laid out on tables. At first sight these installations are likely to remind us of the way printed information is presented, for example, in libraries or at conferences. In the design of the paperwork itself, Harlev generally imitates the kind of layout used in the informative leaflets we associate with authority and a “neutral” subject content. By contrast, she formulates her textual substance in a highly personal and subjective manner.Thematically, many of her works are concerned with the experience of living in a foreign country and speaking a foreign language. But she also touches on sensitive questions relating to national and cultural identities. In the project Finding him exotic (2002), for example, she explores the relationships between “us” and “the others”. Although it might be our ideal to treat all people equally, regardless of their skin colour and where they come from, our actual behaviour can still show an ambivalence that we would prefer not to acknowledge. In the statement “I sometimes feel ashamed of finding him exotic”, Harlev renders tangible just such a disparity between what we think we ought to feel and what we really feel in certain situations.
In the project she has conceived for Momentum, Harlev turns her spotlight onto the culture of the demonstration. In demonstrations it is advisable if not essential to make one’s message short and to the point, unequivocal and immediately comprehensible. Harlev has produced signs in the style of those used in protest marches, but again, the texts they carry stand in stark contrast to their form. Here her words express doubt and have the character of anti-slogans. Public debate is largely dominated by people who hold clear opinions, and debates are characterised by clear patterns of allegiance: either you are with us or against us. Predictable standpoints are repeated as simplified formulae. Harlev’s project pokes holes in such blind certainty. She challenges us to doubt, and thereby to think afresh.