James Webb (ZA)/ "In Living Memory Of What Never Happened"
Venue: Byparken - Paviljong

A public service announcement declaring “Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention please. You are reminded that everything is fine,” is broadcast at random intervals during the day, in a public space. The intervention is unadvertised and presented without any context, allowing the incidental audiences to resolve whatever this open statement might mean or refer to.

The work features the voice of Bjørn Willberg Andersen, and was created with the kind assistance of Maia Urstad, Lars Ove Toft and Sissel Lillebostad.

BIO
James Webb (b. 1975, Kimberley) has been working on both large-scale installations in galleries and museums as well as unannounced interventions in public spaces since 2001. His work questions the nature of belief in our contemporary world, often using exoticism, displacement and humour to achieve these aims. He has participated in exhibitions including the 3rd Marrakech Biennale, the 2009 Melbourne International Arts Festival and the 9th Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon.

Notable recent projects include “Scream,” wherein the artist invited members of the gallery staff of the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid to scream at Picasso’s Guernica, “Autohagiography,” an installation consisting of audio interviews conducted with himself under hypnosis, and “There’s No Place Called Home” an on going, world-wide intervention using incongruous foreign birdcalls broadcast out of speakers concealed in local trees, for example the calls of South African summer birds in Japanese trees during midwinter.