Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe 'Scenario in the Shade'

The American artists Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe will for the first time in Scandinavia show their
immersive environmental installations that play on ideas of hypertrophic urbanism, community, ritual
and psychopharmacology. Youth Cultures in advanced, techno-centric civilisations manifest their
identities through evolving, highly specific styles, recreational activities, commodities, slang, apparel
and drugs. 'Scenario in the Shade' is a spatial articulation of the habitats of six youth subcultures of San
San.

The world of San San originates from an idea put forth by futurist Herman Kahn in his 1967 book “The
Year 2000”. He speculated that the coastal area between San Diego and San Francisco would grow into
one giant metropolis. He called this region simply ”San San”. This never happened. Freeman & Lowe
have taken this veritable fiction and built a parallel world that is articulated through a variety of
objects, ephemera, architectural scenarios and a trilogy of films.

In 'Scenario in the Shade', Freeman & Lowe transform the north wing of Kunsthal Charlottenborg’s
galleries into a sequence of interiors that begins with an entrance through a Porta-Potty that leads into
a rundown Victorian-cold-water-flat and fans out into a warren of makeshift dwellings for the various
youth micro-cultures. Each room is referred to by the name of a specific group: The Shade, The Fort,
Phansigar Gokudo, Bamboo Union, King Gordon and Disco Creeps. The environments include a
shantytown labyrinth, a hybrid room-size computer, a neon black market and anime arcade constructed
of collaged beach towels. The passage through these interiors can feel like an uncanny cross between
an architectural ruin and a simulated theatrical world.

The installation has previously been shown at the Istanbul Biennale 2017 curated by Michael Elmgreen
and Ingar Dragset. 'Scenario in the Shade' was made possible by the generous support of Red Bull Arts
NY.