All My Suicides Part One
ALL MY SUICIDES PART ONE:
2009, Man-high plexi-glass columns 200 cm, ø 30 cm with print.
All my suicides is an installation consisting of five 2-meter man high plexi-glass columns with print. The columns messure 90 cm in circumference. Fotographs of birth- and namecertificates enlarged at an imprintery are strapped around the columns but they are only 160 centimeter high which leaves a 40 centimeter transperent part in the bottom. The five columns are placed in the formation of a pentagon.
All my Suicides Part One documents a part (10 years) of a life project. The print is representing five birth-and name certificates of Mille Kalsmose. Since 1999 “Henriette Olesen” changed her given name and added “Kalsmose” from her grandmother; already in 2002 while moving to Barcelona she changed “Henriette” to “Mille”; later in 2005, she removes her family name “Olesen” and in 2008 she married and joined her name with the one of her husband and became “Mille Kalsmose-Hjelmborg”.
When discussing authenticy a birthcertificate is a highly qualified item to bring into use. They carry the real name of the artist along with the official stamp of the authorities and must be considered authentic. If it wasn´t for the enlargement one could think that they were actually the actual document made by the authorities. As a readymade the birthcertificate brings the audience right into a private sfere of the artist. You have to move around the columns to read and find out what it´s all about. As the columns are not placed on a line but in the formation of a pentagon it creates a room between them that can be interpreted as her inside where the spectator is invited in to have a closer look. To underline that we are invited into her intimate sfere, the plexi-glass material is transparent so we can see through her ”skin”.
The function of a birthcertificate is documenting one´s identity in the eyes of society and at the same time it shows your membership into a family. It gives the individual a starting point in life, something from which to build an understanding of who you are and where you belong. It tells you something about the group you are a member of – which family and also the social, cultural community that the family is part of.
The colums can be seen as supporting pillars in life that each individual can lean upon. The man high size makes them appear almost as physical things to lean on like the members of ones family – maybe not always physical in the real world but more so mentally and psychologically. To have those pillars in life is something that she is missing – not only as in the daily support but also as a cultural and social fixed point from which to navigate in life. A fundament for the identity in the shape of a family with a mother and a father.
With her namecertificates as the groundpillars, she is building a place, a fort, from where she can get to know and understand herself. The fort as a symbol is in itself very masculine and the columns add to this notion with their reference to fallos. The hight gives the pillars a dominating position and a fort is where you keep control over your center. masculine modality. But the five columns and the five names all belonging to Kalsmose represent a self split into five identities. In the proces of building something that is supposed to be stronger than the reality she experiences she ends up displaying how weak it is. Her monument in the shape of a fort is as fragile as Emin´s tent.
All my suicides deals with the definition of identity and the concept of family as a non- conventional fenomenon. The displaying of name change indicates a non-fixed and multi-potential view on identity. Kalsmose has used her name changes consciously as a symbol to her self and her surroundings to envisage her continued transformation. And she is serious about it. Namechanging means not only a new birthcertificate but also all documents in society stating her identity towards the authorities like visa, drivers license, passport etc. But the reproductional material used indicates that it is not a unique thing for her – “rebirthing” is possible for everyone.