Sonja Lillebæk Christensen lives and works in Copenhagen Denmark. She is born at the west coast of Jutland, Denmark. Generally speaking her work draws on the experience of having an identity and the knowledge of the periphery, which is, especially in art, not compatible with the major culture. The works of Sonja draws on the documentary interest that has become ever more prevalent in contemporary art since the 1970s, at the same time as they humorously play with this interest from the point of view of a both voyeuristic and questioning person. On one level, Sonja acts as the artist observer, who seeks out places and situations, from her home area, her local environment in the South Harbour of Copenhagen to the Istanbul Strait, to get them on film. She cultivates a taste for the everyday, those events that we might not notice or are aware of but which nevertheless contains social, cultural and poetic significance. On another level, she embodies an imagination that cannot help investing itself in the events and make them personal, adding a touch of fiction to them. As such, her works outlines an ambiguous, yet creative position of involvement that is at one time at a distance and intimate with the world as a field of open narratives. It is a position that expresses a straightforward attempt to understand the events of the world while acknowledging that they work according to logics that continuously escape our preconceived ideas about them, challenging us to expand our perceptive framework. Recently, in 2013, Sonja s works have made a turn towards the fictional and the performative. She stages events in front of the camera, like burning a Moped (the video installation Moped burning- on my 40th birthday) on her 40 years birthday, a kind of goodbye to her former self. The text part of the installation is one part remembrance of driving around on a Moped as a very young girl and hanging out in the local fast food joint, and another part which reflects on her moving from the very periphery of Danish culture to the centerpart of it. The text has a certain unease with the big difference between the two positions. The work describes a general tendency in Sonja s oeuvre: center/periphery; unease, sometimes almost anxiety, in situations that should be well-known to her; and maybe a part of romanticism on behalf of the past. http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/knallertafbraending-pa-40-ars-fodselsdag/ In the first part of the video Take me Home (2012) she is trying to go home to the region of her childhood in West Jutland, DK. The difficulties with that are many: both mental and practical. The alienation is very concrete. In the second part she is driving through West Virginia, USA and now the alienation is less present. What starts out as a strange place ends up quit familiar and somehow a place Sonja take with ease thanks to the recognition from American film sceneries and hillbillies. http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/-take-me-home-2012/ Most recently she have made the Video From hide to hide. It is a story told by song and recitation, based on a Danish song from 1921 with the title, Little Butterfly. The original song is about love and death and the cycle of life. In Sonja s version death is not the end, it is new opportunities. The story is about social mobility, the hopes of a woman, Rose, to make it, getting a better, more stable life, and all the distress coming from discovering that her new husbands past, alcohol and children, is destabilizing everything. He dies and she is free to fly to a new flower as the butterfly in the song. In her newer works, like this, Sonja is not the observer, she is acting and setting the stage for her own performance. She is pushing to the world in order to change how it is told. http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/fra-skjul-til-skjul-2013/ Oversize (2011) consists of footages from Youtube of truck drivers filming their own trucks or other truck drivers trucks. It is Oversize, it is transport of parts of windmills, parts for ships, it very difficult driving, it is huge and definitely heroic. The soundtrack is the soundtracks from the Youtube videos. The video should be shown as big as possible, at least the size of very large truck. http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/oversize-2011/ The slideshow Oringe (2011) consist of 36 photos of old engravings on a hide out for smokers on the mental hospital Oringe, Vordingborg, Denmark. Some of the engraving is calendars, maybe countdowns to release, and some are names and dates. The hide out have an indefinite aura of freedom. Maybe it is just a projection on behalf of the artist. But it is space of non-surveillance, that is for sure. http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/udstilling/nothing-else-matters-2011/ For more information and to view the video works, please have a look at the homepage www.sonjalillebaek.dk
Title: From hide to hide... 2013 (The video is unfortunately not been translated into English yet) Link: http://sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/fra-skjul-til-skjul-2013/ Installation view, From hide to hide... from the exhibition Double Desillusion on Udstillingsstedet Sydhavn Station, Copenhagen, 2013. The artwork consist of: 1 channel video projection with music sung by Gry Bagøien which among other things is known from co-operation with FM Einheit. 4 Still from 1 channel videoprojoktion with music.
Title: Moped Burning on my 40th birthday, 2013. (The video is unfortunately not been translated into English yet) Link: http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/knallertafbraending-pa-40-ars-fodselsdag/ Installation view, Moped Burning on my 40th birthday, from the exhibition Konfrontation on Den Frie, Copenhagen 2013. The artwork consists of: 1 channel video projection with sound and one 3 channel video projection with text narrative. Still from 1 channel video projection with sound. Still from 3 channel video projection with narrative text. texting and talking on the phone we have chatted,
Title: Take me Home, 2012. Link: http://sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/-take-me-home-2012/ Installation view, Take me Home, from the solo exhibition Almost Heaven on Gallery Image, Århus, 2012. The artwork consist: 3 channel video projection with narrative voiceover and music in a dark room. Still from 3 channel video projection. Still from 3 channel video projection.
Title: OVERSIZE, 2011. Link: http://sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/oversize-2011/ Installation view, OVERSIZE, from the solo exhibition Nothing Else Matters on Overgaden, Copenhagen, 2011. The artwork consist: 3 channel video projection with edited audio and video clips of youtube where men have videotaped other men who move heavy loads on trucks.
Title: Scene of the Crime II, 2009. Link: http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/video/scene-of-the-crime-ii-2009/ Installation view, Scene of the Crime II, 2009, from the solo exhibition Nothing Else Matters on Overgaden, Copenhagen, 2011. The artwork consist of: 1 channel video projection in a dark room. Title: Solitario, sinking sailor, Hamburg. 2011. Link: http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/udstilling/nothing-else-matters-2011/ Installation view, Solitario (sinking sailor, Hamburg), from the solo exhibition Nothing Else Matters on Overgaden, Copenhagen, 2011. The artwork consist of: Black and white foto mural wall (8,50 m x 3,75 m)
Title: Smoking Area, Oringe mental hospital, Vordingborg, Denmark (1907-1996) Link: http://www.sonjalillebaek.dk/index.php?/udstilling/nothing-else-matters-2011/ Installation view, Smoking Area, Oringe mental hospital, Vordingborg, Denmark (1907-1996), 2011, from the solo exhibition Nothing Else Matters on Overgaden, Copenhagen, 2011. The artwork consist of: Slide projection with 40 pieces of 60x60 mm. 3 out of 40 pieces of 60x60 mm.