AMCN exhibition 2026

Alma Ulrikke Bille Stræde

Load Bearing, 2026

Smocks, custom-woven jacquard fabric, folding screen, S-hooks, clamps

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In the foyer of Odense Concert Hall, the body enters into functional mode before it emerges as an individual. Here, movements, glances, and stops are organised within a space where multiple systems overlap: Concert, conference, operation.

Load Bearing uses as its starting point those who already carry the space: the front-of-house staff.

The artwork consists of newly produced uniforms for those who greet and guide. When the uniforms are worn, they come together to create a moving visual surface and become a sculpture in motion. When they are not worn, they are left hanging on a mobile structure like a displaced presence within the space.

The uniform takes the shape of a smock: A garment that oscillates between labour and authority, anonymity and representation. Jacquard-vowen parts translate photographic motifs of a horse into a material, almost tactile visual surface — into something that is only partially recognisable.

Putting on the uniform does not only mean stepping into a role, but becoming part of a structure where body, architecture, and function merge into one.

Between the structural and the sensory, a tension appears in which the body at once participates in and steps out of the system it helps sustain.