HYPOGEUM
June 25, 2025
Hypogeum is a new work that takes the listener on a journey in sound through the colossal Copenhagen sewer system. It is composed of sound recordings that I made of sewer pipes, storm water tunnels, pump stations, and majestic cistern-like water reservoirs. The work reveals a vast and complex underground infrastructure, that is vital to the life and health of the city.I will present this work in public for the first time as a 32-channel sound installation at Bent Fabricius-Bjerres Plads in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen, as part of the Copenhagen Architecture Forum.
The installation will run from September to October, in collaboration with Lydbrøndene. More information to follow.
THE GREY ZONE (NeverWhere)
June 12, 2025
New work for
Moss Biennial - Between / Worlds: Resonant Ecologies, Norway, 2025:
The Grey Zone (NeverWhere) is created from sound recordings of a radioactive space combined with the natural sounds of the forest
in the MOMENTUM 13 outdoor exhibition area. Sound captured inside the Zone of Alienation in Chernobyl, Ukraine is the sound of a
radioactive swimming pool. The sound of water dripping from the ceiling is played via speakers placed in trees by the natural
pathway.
VOICES
June 05, 2025
Interview portrait of 'waste reclaimer' Amos from Kenya:
This is another film that I created for the
The Circulate Initiative,
New York, which is part of the ongoing project VOICES, -
my on going collaboration with The Circulate Initiative.
Some of my films from this series were also produced in close collaboration with UN-HABITAT, Nairobi, Kenya.
Watch more of the videos at
CPH:PIX
Jacob Kirkegaard receives New Carlsberg Foundation's Artist Award, 2025
March 12, 2025
I am honoured to have received
New Carlsberg Foundation's
prestigious Artist award. Here's a
film
that JJ Film created about me for this special occasion.
NAUFRAGIUM
February 07, 2025
Naufragium is a new sound installation that I have created on commissioned by and for Museum of Copenhagen.
The work is now permanently installed in one of the museum's galleries.
It was supported by Ny Carlsbergfondet, Det Obelske Familiefond and Augustinus Fonden.
Announcement in Danish.
Photo by Regitze Westergaard, Venice, Italy, Autumn 2024
SNOWBLIND
January 24, 2025
Thrilled to announce my new vinyl album
Snowblind
released by The Helen Scarsdale Agency (USA). Jim Haynes writes:
"With Snowblind, Kirkegaard turns to history, and a poetic, failed attempt for a team of Swedish explorers to reach the North Pole
by balloon in the late 19th Century. Perhaps driven by blind adventurism, perhaps consumed by his own delusions, S.A. Andrée
launched this ill-fated flight in July 1897, registering only two days in the air before crashing into the ice and ultimately
failing to navigate the frigid waters and ice floes. Yet documentation of their expedition - photographic, scientific, and
diaristic - survived, to be discovered some thirty years after their deaths.
“I wanted to created a cold and hostile album, where there is no escape, no warmth and no happy ending,” as Kirkegaard explains about
Snowblind. “Yet, I wanted to leave out any immediate drama. It is the creeping shock, the icy feeling from realizing what has been
lost and that there’s no escape.” Yes, Snowblind is a very bleak album, but one that eschews the isolationist, long-form drone of
conceptually similar works by Thomas Köner, Lustmord, Werkbund, and Lull with interconnected constellations of cryptic tone,
thrumming reverberation, arctic bluster, and a plethora of harrowing sonic proclamations."
LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND
PARA:DOX
This is a video compilation that focuses on the voices and real-life stories of waste
reclaimers highlighting their journeys, challenges and aspirations.
All films were made by me and produced by UN-Habitat, Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and The Circulate Initiative. South Africa, Nigeria, Vietnam and India,
2023.
The videos were premiered by UN-Habitat in Kenya in November 2023 for an event focused on the voices of waste reclaimers. It was co-hosted by The Circulate Initiative and UN-Habitat in Nairobi during the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3) to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.
Hypogeum
This new and immersive work invites the listener on a journey in sound through the colossal Copenhagen sewer system. I composed it of sound recordings that I made of its sewer pipes, storm water tunnels, pump stations, and majestic cistern-like water reservoirs.
Hypogeum reveals a vast and complex underground infrastructure, that is vital to the life and health of the city.
Spring 2024. Commissioned by New Carlsberg Foundation.
Tale of the Bee
This work draws inspiration from the now extinct and nearly forgotten European tradition; Telling the Bees, which involved informing bees about important events in a person's life or in the world by whispering or singing messages into beehives. According to the myth, as bees had access to the underworld and could act as messengers.
The artwork Tale of the Bee flips the tradition and questions whether bees have something to tell us. I therefore made a 24-hour sound recording inside a beehive. The sounds of the bees are then printed on vinyl. I ultimately transcribed the sound waves back into panels of beeswax produced by the bees from the same hive.
Munkeruphus, Spring 2024.
Supported by the Danish Arts Foundation.