ISHØJ .- Camouflaged bird-houses, street-art samplers and colourful webs of string between the trees and street lights of the city. This summer ARKEN invites you to experience art beneath the high, blue sky when ten contemporary artists transform the stretch between Ishøj Town and the beach behind the museum into a living arena for art, play and physical activity.

Ishøj is an area of great diversity where you can find big housing projects, neat residential neighbourhoods with quiet streets, and stunning natural surroundings. The exhibition Art in Sunshine links all these elements in what is ARKEN’s first open-air exhibition ever. Playful sculptures, subtle installations and captivating performances take over the stretch between Ishøj town centre and ARKEN. The works have been created by ten contemporary artists; what they have in common is that they all invite the visitor to play and participate.

“Whether you’re walking the dog, running, are going to the beach or maybe to the museum, we hope that Art in Sunshine will surprise and inspire you and lead to playful encounters and new acquaintances – and will perhaps even make you see the surroundings in a brand new way,” says ARKEN’s director Christian Gether.

From asphalt to sand
The works in the exhibition are just as different as the areas they are in. On the walk from the town to Strandparken you may be led astray by Thomas Dambo’s camouflaged birdhouses, which merge with everything from the local pub and station kiosk to the housing blocks and residential neighbourhoods of the town. Into the wire fences of the peaceful residential streets Søren Behncke a.k.a. The Bag Man has woven pixel-embroidered samplers and humorous statements that relate to the special character of the neighbourhood.

Blue waves and art with plenty of sunshine factor
If you pass from the residential area down to the water, Gudrun Hasle’s notices in the reeds in the lake Jægersø plant a personal question in the open landscape about being good enough. Jeppe Hein’s unconventional bench in several storeys creates a playful space for new encounters, and Thilo Frank’s swing out in the middle of the lake invites us as individuals to reflect on our place in nature as we fly across the water. Marianne Jørgensen’s living sculptures of grass and felt (you can crawl through them) offer an organic sensory setting for re-experiencing the landscape.

In Karoline H Larsen’s participation-based performances, new collectivities arise when she invites the passers-by to build great webs of colourful string – for the first time on the opening day. And in the treetops right down by he water you can see her poetic sculpture of dream-catchers, created in collaboration with the Vejleåparken Plan and the integration project In line with the world.

Eva Steen Christensen connects culture and nature with her ornamented marble blocks at the water’s edge on Ishøj Beach. The artist group AVPD investigates the beach as a social venue with a concrete pavilion that plays with the unwritten rules of the beach, and in the sand Jesper Dalgaard’s lath construction towers up and invites you to climb up and see the surroundings from a new perspective.

You can visit the exhibition Art in Sunshine in the period 30 May – 13 September 2015.