05/07-13   -   Press releases

The Rise and Fall of the Wall with the BunkerLove Festival 2013

The art and culture association BunkerLove will be celebrating the people´s art throughout the month of July. This will take place in a variety of bunker landscapes along the North Jutland coast on the first three Sundays in July.

The festival series has a variety of themes that revolve around the artistic project of transformation.

It is an expression of love in raw and barren landscapes. The opening festival, with the title "Alert", examines alternative collaborations and challenges our familiar views. A fire control bunker in

Hirtshals will be lovingly decorated with flowers and provide the framework for a ceremonial cleansing of religious occupation. The work, "A Cottage for Yemanja" by Inge Tranter (DK/ZA), Sandro Masai (DK/BR) and Michael Richardt Petersen (DK/NI), will harmonise with the green hills of the bunker museum and will move down to the white beach and the wet border against the rest of the world. Meile Sposmanyte´s 111 Buddhas will be waiting here, from a secret chamber, with space for prayer and contemplation. And out in the bunkers in the hills, you may hear somebody talking to Him, or at least to somebody.

On the 14th of July there will be a beach party in Grønhøj entitled "Chilled". The Danish Nature

Agency put a spoke in the planned "Sacred" festival and instead of appealing the judgement, the

Association found a bunker in Grønhøj which is already set up with a painting exhibition in the sand at one of Denmark´s best bathing beaches. Andrew Zealey (DK/UK) will be exhibiting here and there will also be an ambient musical soundscape, "In a Silent Wave". Nurturing friendly forces feels more satisfying than fighting opponents in this case. We´ll keep the beers cool in the bunker.

On July 21, we will be taking the People´s BunkerLove festival back to its starting point in Furreby, where the Association held its pilot project last summer. Our European ancestors have created a wall of 14000 bunkers from North Norway to the South of France, including 6000 in Denmark, and of these, 1000 are in North Jutland. It remains a mystery how so many people could contribute in creating this fortress. The power to actually build a new wall of solidarity is a bit frightening. The festival aims to celebrate and also to question human strength.

Erik Peitersen, who created the Gold Tooth in 2012, will be marking this with a more fluid work, and there will be architectonic reorientation which will be visible, created by Elin Strand Ruin in collaboration with Spridd (S). Edit Vizer will design a particularly corporeal bunker experience,

Christian Skjødt, a solar powered audio installation and Objartiste will be creating a video installation in a cannon bunker, which examines changes in relationships. Dominik Blasko will be playing a piano concert for the bunkers.

There will be viewings of the theatre piece A Walk in the Dark, based on the Spoon River

Anthology, which takes place in a churchyard and is the senses of the souls. The American Edgar

Lee Masters wrote the texts in 1915 and last year´s speaker and dramatist Lars Ditlev Johansen has now adapted them for the bunker landscapes.

The bunker transformations will mostly only be available days of the festivals, but will be preserved in a digital wall using Augmented Reality. The efforts to build an Atlantic wall of art are consolidated with new partnerships with history museums and archives and with the University of Aalborg.

Participants are a mix of local, regional, national and international forces. All events are free and everyone is welcome.

Participating artists www.bunkerlove.dk/artists
All events www.bunkerlove.dk/festival

About BunkerLove

BunkerLove is a voluntary association and annual festival, which has as its mission to transform the bunkers on the Atlantic Wall from Norway to France to artworks. BunkerLove 2013 is funded by Region Nordjylland and is the official "Kulturpunkt 2013" for the region. The project has been supported due to, amongst other things, its innovative approach to the functions of the bunkers, and is dependant on a series of collaborations with industry, public and private institutions and has united culture, art and bunker enthusiasts. www.bunkerlove.dk/festival