PISKET: “Now I feel like no, no, no I don’t want anything to do with art.”

P: “I got into the Academy when I was 17. I’d been hanging out with artist like Fryd Frydendahl and Asbjørn Skou having a great time, so I thought I would meet a lot of like-minded people at the art academy …

The very first week consisted of a weeklong seminar from 8am to 4pm every day.

At the seminar this dude from Novo Nordisk [massive Danish pharmaceutical company red.] talked about self-branding and management.

– Not exactly what I expected.”

P: “At one point my friend died.

I was completely devastated and couldn’t attend classes.

I told my professor about the situation and he replied:

‘I know how you feel. The important thing in a situation like that is to run a marathon, I’ve been running marathons for 10 years and I am never sad, just happy. All the time.’

I was speechless. He just kept talking about running marathons for an hour. He would have continued if I’d left the room, I’m sure.

I just sat there thinking OK this is insane – fuck this.”

P: “I decided I needed to do something that didn’t take up too much space and something I could do anywhere, so I started making comics.”

P: “I turned my attention from art history to comics and television series, entertainment became superior.

– I have learned more from the American TV-series The Wire than any lesson I’ve ever had in art history.”

P: “It was an insanely tough process.”

P: “It is new for me to make traditional comics. Because everything is fitted into squares it is a real challenge to make every picture as good as it can be within the boundaries of the frame.

The rhythm, the level of detail, how much to cut away – there are so many considerations when putting together a narrative like that.”

P: “One thing is to get the historic facts straight. I wanted an angle that addressed the Armenian genocide, but it had to be incorporated into the depiction of my fathers life, who, as it happens, denies that the Armenian genocide ever took place.

So trying to create a story people understand which at the same time respects history and respects my dad, a story I can concede – it’s been mad.”

P: “I started out wanting to make it strictly biographical but that didn’t work out at all. He kind of needed to be freed from the reality he moved within in order for me to really describe it.

The result is a weird mix of part his story, part my story and part history.

– In a way the whole thing is me trying to relive his childhood.”

P: “I don’t know what the fad is at the academy at the moment but when I went there, it was performance and time based art, everything they spoke about could be applied to comics.

– But the beauty of comics is that no one takes them seriously.”

DAHL: “The development of the piece Seven Days evolved around process and performativity.

Through its conceptual frame – each day the removal of material from the wooden board and then the printing of it – a flow and a sequence was made visible through the technique of wood cut.”

D: “It became a daily report, an image, which in the end came to a point of dissolving into emptiness – the white sheet, the seventh day.”

D: “The woods as a site and a scene is something that I continually come back to. Places where we as humans are at the same time rejected and have a notion of belonging.”

D: “In this dual state of alienation and homeliness a position and a certain gaze is offered. We could also give our selves to the surrounding woods if the forests allowed us to. For a short while become more like the forest; like pine needles, like moss.

That state and gaze is important for my practice and I keep returning to it; for the feeling of loosing and finding my self in the continuing work of formulations and configurations.”

D: “If we talk about the written language, like in literature, it is a huge source of ideas and images. At the same time I think of language as something that is bigger than text and reaches far outside the field of literature.

All actions leave traces, all traces create associations, stories, sounds and images.”

D: “The semiotic level or ideas helps me to bring the work forward, and further on that semiotic level could be seen as something of a method or a strategy for me as an artist.

Through a practice concerned with the semiotic levels in art, I reach a position where it is equally good to write a text, draw or to make a sound piece. I can free myself and move more effortlessly among my abilities and means.”

D: “Inspiration is sometimes a bit overloaded as a word. I rather think of energy, the energy to do things, and that could come from many directions.

Literature and poetry are two sources of energy. There is space and room there for thoughts and images to elaborate. In literature there is space, cathedrals of possibilities. That kind of places makes me want to make art.”