Getting stuck, naked, in a tree and having the whole episode captured on film would be a cringe-worthy moment for most. However, this artist managed to turn the situation around and win an award for it.
Hilde Krohne Huse, a Norwegian who now lives in London was just trying to film a two-second clip of herself hanging naked from a tree for an art project and ended up getting a stuck. She recorded herself for 11 minutes trying (and failing) to free herself until her camera ran out. She struggled for another 20 minutes. She was stuck, naked, by herself for over half an hour dangling from a tree. Horrid.
However, the enterprising young artist uploaded the video to YouTube as she thought it was interesting, and she got nearly half a million views. The accident became a piece of art in its own right, and won the Bloomberg New Contemporaries award. The video will be shown in galleries around the UK from autumn.
This is what the young artist had to say about her work: “I think people feel for the subject – the emotions are raw. The boundary between the fiction and reality breaks down. When you watch an audience watch it – some people think it is funny and then they see the distress is real so it becomes less funny, but I don't mind people laughing – as soon as I make a work it is for the audience. Half is my intention and half is what the audience get from it. It has gone around the world – it is weird experience to see something that I intended to be fictional, turn real and then be in the news and turn fictional again through the media.”
Her story is encouragement to us all. Made an almighty fuck up? Call it art.
