The Biennale Award 2021

The Biennale Award of 100.000 Danish kroner was given to Helle Vibeke Jensen.

The prize committee agreed to give the Award to Helle Vibeke Jensen with the following words:

The title of the piece, ‘I’ll take it all with me!’ sets the stage and offers a clear characterization of a time when nothing is as usual. Helle Vibeke Jensen creates a new playing field and offers a new language, in the form of an alphabet. In reflection of its time, the piece incorporates a statement about sport and art by the Danish Minister of Culture and thus offers a basis for artistic reflection with both serious and humorous notes in a playful, curious, experimental and conceptual form. As spectators, we are invited in and feel drawn to interacting and examining the many different facets of the piece, from scrolls to tiny packets or drawers, all calling out to be opened. 

The two runner ups:

Helen Clara Hemsley, Making the Most og It

Jewellery as a carrier of personal stories forms a strong narrative, whose basic fabric is human not material. The pieces become images of a time of crisis, when new creativity blooms and old dogmas are challenged. The artist’s interpretation of the personal stories is both refreshing and humorous but also has a serious note, and the personal artefacts have been treated with great care, whether they are gold or a roller-skate wheel.

Dorte Østergaard Jacobsen, A Stitch in Time 

In this piece, the artist takes a poetic approach to her own personal history, using embroidery thread left behind by her mother to create embroideries inspired by the lessons of the pandemic. The pieces invite both nostalgia and contemplation and contain reflective layers of embroidered sequences that represent journeys in both time and place. The five notations in the piece represent widely different visual expressions, which come together in an impactful and coherent whole. 

Prize Committee 2021

Jane Sandberg, Director atEnigma

Mads Quistgaard, CEO Urgent Agency

Maria Sparre-Petersen, Professor at The Royal Academy, MFA, Ph.d. glass designer.