4 – 28 June 2026
Opening 4 June 5 – 7pm
Rådmandsgade 34, 2200 København N
Utantill/By Heart is an exhibition and investigation into oral storytelling and origin stories. The tradition of telling stories beyond the written word is a folk and indigenous practice that passes on knowledge between generations. Bypassing text, oral exchanges have the capacity to circumvent institutional and hegemonic history to develop storylines that stretch beyond colonial time. Retelling is an embodied and political act that secures and reinvigorates culture. With an installation of tapestries and objects that functions as props in her stories, and a series of open events and workshops, Lisa Nyberg invites us to both consider and practice oral storytelling, to develop our capacity for imagination and collective myth making.
Nyberg’s own attempts at oral storytelling builds on Swedish and Saami folk traditions, as well as lecture performance and embodied pedagogy. Working as an artist, teacher and researcher Nyberg is interested in the relationship between knowledge and art – in how art can help us understand the world and each other and in how art operates the more than rational in our societies and culture and gives form to the unknown. In her artistic practice this interest has taken the form of performances, installations, workshops and sound pieces; a free university and a think tank on radical pedagogy; educational art programmes, an open studio space and a residency program for artists at risk. Nyberg is an associate professor at Umeå Academy of Fine arts, Sápmi/Sweden.
Tale telling circle
Tale telling circle with invited guests
Friday 5 June 5 – 7pm with Bodil Krogh Andersen, Julie Edel Hardenberg, Felicia Konrad, Martin Kristoffer Lund and Imri Sandström, roda – soft water on hard stone (Katarina Stenbeck and Carla Zaccagini)
Friday 26 June 5 – 7pm with Francis Patrick Brady, Joanna Johnson, Tone Olaf Nielsen, Marit-Shirin Carolasdotter and Louise Fontain
I feel like you have a story to tell. A tale that was gifted to you and that you are now the custodian of. It came to you as a story of creation, a journey, or a riddle. It carries with it a gift in the form of a lesson, a guiding principle, or a collective memory to be passed from mouth to ear. Or maybe the gift is hidden in the drama. Will you offer us a story?
The Tale telling circle offers an opportunity for us to practice sharing our stories. As the host, Nyberg has invited a few selected guests – artists of all kinds – to tell a story, but she welcomes everyone who attends to both listen and share. Come join the circle!
Utantill/By heart workshop
Workshop part I Saturday 26 June 12 – 4pm
Workshop part II Saturday 27 June 12 – 4pm
Welcome to an introduction to the tradition and practice of origin stories and oral storytelling. The workshop is aimed at anyone who is interested in retelling as an embodied and political act. By aiming beyond the nationalist, colonial and capitalist narratives that dominate our present, we will call and recall other origin stories into emergence. Our findings will be restated in our own words until we know them by heart, offering them a home in the body-mind of our collective experience. The workshop is carefully constructed to be a hopeful practice without guarantees.
All are welcome but registration is required. To register please write lisa.nyberg@gmail.com no later than 1 June.
Drinks and a small meal are included.
The Flat Choir with Francis Patrick Brady
Friday 26 June 3 – 4.30pm
‘The Flat Choir’ is a participatory singing and storytelling workshop for people who don’t sing and people who do. It is not about performance, but about sharing stories and songs with a group. It is about a form of oral storytelling that has been partially forgotten in modern life. This project is inspired by Sacred Harp singing from the Appalachian mountains and the traditional pub carols sung in the English town of Sheffield (where the artist grew up).
Sacred Harp is a singing tradition that emphasises singing together for amateurs and was designed to be accessible to non-literate settlers in America who wanted to sing together at church. The traditional Sheffield pub carols are one of the oldest oral singing traditions outside of the church in Europe. ‘The Flat Choir’ workshop also borrows techniques from Larp (Live Action Role Play) and the artist’s previous project ‘The Choir of Not Knowing’.
https://francispatrickbrady.com/
PROGRAMME
Thursday 4 June 5 – 7pm
Opening with performance
Friday 5 June 5 – 7pm
Tale telling circle with invited guests
Saturday 6 June 12 – 4pm
Workshop part I
Friday 26 June
3 – 4.30pm The Flat Choir with Francis Patrick Brady
5 – 7pm Tale telling circle with invited guests
Saturday 27 June 12 – 4pm
Workshop part II
The exhibition is open the following days:
Sunday 7 June 12 – 4 pm
Saturday 13 June 12 – 4pm
Saturday 20 June 12 – 4pm
Thursday 25 June 5 – 7pm
Sunday 28 June 12 – 4pm
roda – soft water on hard stone is a curatorial programme generating conversations with artists and thinkers that unfold in various formats on three continents and the ocean in between. In the face of accelerating interlaced crises birthed by colonial, capitalist and extractivist logics, roda – soft water on hard stone searches for ways to develop sensibilities of co-existence across human and more-than-human worlds that can guide us towards better ways of living, learning, making and believing. www.roda-softwateronhardstone.org
roda – soft water on hard stone is funded by the Bikuben Foundation.