Catalogue > At random

The project Two within close range is an investigation of urban spaces that remain private or inaccessible despite their public significance. The urban structures and familiar places - a park and a construction site with a disputed past - are used to reflect the socio-political issues in the area outside the walled city of Jerusalem. Instead of remaining invisible and unnoticeable in the everyday environment, aspects of contemporary experience of place are revealed through observations of the usage patterns of the selected sites, the Rockefeller Garden and the Nusseibeh building. In this way, they become the centre of attention. In the work, the two sites are represented through still images, video and 8 mm film corresponding with written narratives weaved together in an attempt to re-write and expand what already exists as the oral history of these places. The written narratives deal with the recent past of the area, as well as historical and political narratives, through a more descriptive and spatial approach. By using official information, personal stories collected from the area and fictional elements, a mix of voices and positions appear in order to reproduce and examine recent, at times unnoticed, history.

Maj Hasager is a Danish artist and filmmaker based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She studied photography and fine art in Denmark, Sweden and the UK, earning an MFA from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden. Her work deals with power structures, identity, memory, the construction of history, and architecture, looking at how these interlinked phenomena are interpreted and represented culturally and spatially. Her artistic approach is research-based and interdisciplinary, and she works predominantly with text, sound, video and photography. She has exhibited her work internationally in events and institutions such as; Society Acts, Moderna Museet Malmö (2014), A voice of ones own, Malmö Konstmuseum (2014), Past Upon Past, Red Barn Photo Gallery, Belfast, Ireland (2013), Decembers, LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdańsk, Poland (2012), Liverpool Biennial, UK (2010). She has been awarded grants in support of her work from the Danish ArtsCouncil, The Danish Arts Foundation, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (Beirut, Lebanon), ArtSchool Palestine, Danish Centre for Culture and Development and the Danish Arts Agency. She is the programme director of Critical and Pedagogical studies at Malmö Art Academy, and is a guest lecturer at the International Academy of Art – Palestine, Dar al-Kalima College, Bethlehem and University of Ulster, Belfast.