Nina Beier and Marie Lund, We grown-ups can also be afraid, 2007
Video. 4 min
Courtesy the David and Indrė Roberts Collection
'We grown-ups can also be afraid.'
It is a sentence that rings true. And, one would hope, phrased as if said to the youngest in our communities in a reassuring warm tone, not spoken by them. So, it registers rather oddly to hear it sung by a group of young children’s voices. In the classroom setting they find themselves in, their cacophony is underscored by some rapid tapping of a drum and a persistent cough, at moments overpowering the vocals like the clash of a cymbal. It is a stark and apprehensive beat for a song about being afraid of 'the black ugly smoke coming from the factory.' They sing on: 'I am afraid of the nuclear power plants,' '. . . afraid of what is written in stupid books.' It is the shift from the collective ‘we grown-ups’ to the first-person singular ‘I’ that is perhaps most jarring.
What strange transfer of knowledge is at play here? Why are adults choosing to give voice to Cold War era paranoia and anxiety through the children they are supposed to be nurturing and protecting? It seems like a pure projection of angst onto an unknowing symbol of innocence.
Danish artists Nina Beier and Marie Lund were both taught this song in school when growing up. Their experience was in fact one shared by anyone from Denmark of the same generation as the artists. This song was included in the national curriculum song book, which went out to every single primary school. Written by folk singer Bjarne Jess Hansen in 1978, it was indeed penned as a dark warning of nuclear threat and possible ideological indoctrination, packaged up with pop flair to soften the blow.
Teaching it to children in the early 80s is perhaps quite telling of a Danish way of dealing with things at that time. Following the wake of the cultural and sexual revolution of the 60s nothing was taboo. Fast forward some thirty years, the artists, now acting as music teachers in this video piece, can be heard trying to spur the group on as some pupils chatting in the corner are resisting taking part in this meaning being transferred onto them. Children are smart, after all. Whilst they may duly perform the task at hand (learn the lyrics, sing the song) under the learnt power structure of a teacher-pupil relationship, the reluctance that this particular song evokes could suggest the children are well aware there is some sort of manipulation happening, or even that fear is being instilled in them. Perhaps not entirely innocent or unknowing after all.
Exploring these relationships — those of being versus representing or those that give shape to social and cultural fabric — is characteristic of Nina Beier and Marie Lund’s collaborative practice. This video was originally made for their solo exhibition at DRAF, back in 2008 titled All The Best. It carried the subtitle A Solo Exhibition by Nina Beier and Marie Lund turning into a Group Show. Having only opened its doors a couple of months prior, this was the second solo exhibition DRAF ever presented. Yet, as indicated by the title, the duo took the relational transfer that is present in this video and more widely in their work and applied it to the whole show.
Over the duration of the exhibition the artists gradually replaced their own art with that of others they felt a relation to. This particular piece was replaced by a work by Simon Dybbroe Møller. The overall idea was that the logic of the exhibition would stay in place, by replacing works with a directly correlating ‘flavour’ or feeling, whilst they simultaneously altered the structure of the exhibition from within, welcoming in a collective process. With their video work shown in this context, the opening up to collectivity is a note that could make its way back into the school. The spirit of intending to teach awareness and empathy remains valid but rooting this in dialogue rather than a one-sided transfer wouldn’t go amiss.