COPENHAGEN NYDK

2013 // 35MM MULTIPLE EXPOSURE // COPENHAGEN, NY [USA] & COPENHAGEN [DK]

A spatial exploration of two cities approximately 3750 miles apart and only connected by their name, Copenhagen. I visited the village of Copenhagen in the Town of Denmark in the State of New York in 2013. The only reason for me to go was that the village happened to be named after the Danish Capital, where I had lived while studying. Driving there I was meet with wonder at the burger joint/bowling ally where I had lunch “you ain’t gonna find no’hing up there” and at the gas station in Copenhagen they agreed “I think you’re our only tourist in like, forever”. 

Not knowing what to expect, I set out to capture my impression of the city on 35mm film, which I brought back to Copenhagen Denmark later that year. Walking the streets of my capital I realized the difference, up there I had been the only tourist, here in some places I would see nothing but tourists.

So I loaded my camera with the film from New York and started to multiple expose all the sights that tourist comes from around the world to photograph here. 

Looking at the results, some extremely interesting overlaps happen, showing the differences, simple single-family houses in the greens overlapped by the modern masterpiece SAS Radisson Hotel by Arne Jacobsen. But also amazing coincidences that speak to our common background in the classic designs, when the National Gallery of Copenhagen happened to be superimposed onto the Copenhagen Elementary School, showing the latter to have been building the on the geometry of the former. The coincident is even great, as I had no idea of which images would be overlaid, as all the multiple exposures happened directly on the film inside the camera.

From my research, I believe these were Dutch settlers that named the town Copenhagen, in sympathy with the British burning 2/3 of Copenhagen in 1807 to the ground as a preempt attack for Denmark to not join Napoleon’s side.