Heidi Hove, a Danish artist in San Telmo: "There is always something that surprises you..."

      San Telmo is full of pleasant surprises. One of them is an art studio at 1008 Defensa Street, where a young Danish artist, Heidi Hove, is working on a cartoon about a girl who sails away... Denmark seems to be a mysterious faraway place for most porteños, but Heidi is very enthusiastic about her visit here.  

--What brought you to Argentina?

--I am on a residency which I heard about through some other Danish artists who told me they were very impressed by the city. So I thought it would be interesting to go to a place so different from Denmark and northern Europe. Walking around the streets of Buenos Aires I have discovered a city quite at odds with what I know.

--True.You can see more people walking the streets in Latin America than in the U.S. or Europe…

--Yes, and you sort of have to because the distances are much longer here than they are in Copenhagen, for example. It’s a big city but we only have a million and a half inhabitants including the suburbs. There are only around 600,000 in downtown Copenhagen. So it has been fascinating to come here with my Nordic spectrum.

--What has impressed you most about San Telmo?

--As I walk around I take a lot of photographs and that helps me put together some of the previous notions I had. That has also happened to me when I was in Berlin, which has a much livelier environment than Copenhagen. What I really like about Buenos Aires is that you get surprised as you walk around. You can see a completely new building alongside a very old one, something colorful, something old grey and drab…there is always something that surprises you. That’s what I like about this place. That is also the job for the artist—to be surprised, to surprise people or put another perspective on things. What if we were to show this from another angle, from another perspective? How could we transform an object that is considered of little interest?

--Is this your first visit to Latin America?

--I’ve been to Mexico, that’s the only other Latin American country I have been to. There are many things in common but in Mexico City the streets seem to be even busier than here.

--You don’t see many people on the streets in Europe…

--No you don't but I like that and also people seem to be more outgoing. The talk more in public places, in the supermarkets, on the buses and trains. And you have your routines of going out to restaurants, something which is much more common here than in Copenhagen. People talk and it looks more as if they were a big family. In Denmark you don’t go out alone, as you do here. It is two people who go out to have a conversation in a café. It is also more expensive to go out in Denmark, so you usually cook at home. You only go out for special occasions.

--The coffee isn’t very good here but you can stay as long as you want at a café in Buenos Aires.

--Exactly.

--Not to change the subject but I have read that Denmark is supposed to be the happiest country in the world. Is that true?

--I don’t know. Maybe they take anti-depressant pills!

--Do people complain in Denmark?

--They probably say that Denmark is happy because we have a very good health system and it’s safe to walk around on the streets, day and night and for women. I think it has to do with safety. If you’re unemployed you don’t have any difficulty getting unemployment benefits, also retirement is very good. Everything is very, very organized and that’s what contrasts so sharply with things here. There are systems here but they have leaks.

--It is difficult to get continuity here.

--But when you can get together to do things you get fantastic results here and that makes life dynamic. If nobody organizes things for you, you end up doing them yourself. I came from a very small academy located on an island in Denmark. We were only 50 students. And we realized that we couldn’t do it alone: you can’t make it as an artist by yourself. You have to have friends, a network.

 --What is your project here? 

I am working on a story from my childhood. When I was around nine years old, back in the mid 1980's, I  watched a children's Tv program called Sally the Pirate, about this little girl who owns a giraffe. It is very basic, about this girl and how she plays together with her friends. She has a ship that she sails away and the giraffe sometimes becomes invisible because it takes up too much space. So I video recorded the series and have drawn it myself and have been creating my own film roll. It is interesting for me to go back and look at this cartoon I did. That has led to what I have been working on here. In the story there are two brothers who meet the pirate and she's the one who breaks the rules. She is also the one who sails away. That's what I have done: I have never been so far away from home. I see myself as Sally the Pirate. 

--Has your stay here modified in any way your original plans?

--Yes. I brought this cartoon with me in my suitcase but I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. And in this amazing place where I am staying the owner has a wood workshop. That called my attention, so I have begun to use the materials that are here for my cartoon. I also have changed my perspective of the story because I am an adult and I have been exploring new situations.

--The cartoon has to do with your own life?

--Some of them are characters directly from my own life. There’s the mother, the father and, well, there’s the little brother who always asks questions. That reminds me of my own little brother. It’s a silent movie. I chose not to have any sound and perhaps that has to do with my own life, coming from the Danish countryside.

--Can you live doing art in Denmark?

--Only very few people can.

--Is there State funding for the arts?

--Yes. I am also supported by the Danish government, by the Danish Arts Foundation. You can have an exhibition and then apply for support and then there is the residency program. I graduated in 2007 and have been out there long enough for them to pay attention to what I have been doing. And then the more you apply the more you get a feeling about how to write applications. But there are also many layers of activity and that leads to great variety in Denmark.

--What do you think about the art you have seen here?

--Well, I have been to the important museums but I think there is a lot more to see by discovering the small galleries and that’s more difficult. But the longer you are here the more you get to know your way around. A short time ago I was invited to a concert at someone’s home! Things like that never happen in Denmark. It takes time. I've been here two and a half months but that is not very much because there are so many things going on...

Heidi Hove                 http://www.heidehove.com