Segments of a body in musical movements enter a quiet dialogue with body parts stored in conserving liquids, gut bacteria and medical instruments, as the video work Anatomical Songbook moves into Medical Museion.

Anatomical Songbook is a work that examines the body’s movements from a musical perspective. With a meticulous focus on individual joints and muscles, the work simultaneously poses the question of whether music should be categorized exclusively as an auditory phenomenon, i.e. something that must be heard. In Anatomical Songbook there are no instruments that play music, but instead body parts that show music.

Anatomical Songbook consists of twelve songs, each based on a body part as a musical instrument. With a point of departure in the composer’s musical instructions, the body’s motor functions are experienced through the cinematic gestures as more or less abstract pictorial movements.

The work is shown on four screens that are temporarily placed as an integral part of the Medical Museion’s permanent exhibitions. This creates a dialogue between the scientific focus of the exhibitions and the sensuous look of the body in the art films.

The work is developed for Medical Museion in a collaboration between composer Jeppe Ernst, video artist Émile Sadria and singer/performer Jakob Bloch Jespersen, and can be experienced in the period 15 November 2022- 19 February 2023

Jeppe Ernst is a trained composer from the Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 2017, he was the first winner of Pelleprisen, a prize awarded to ‘a young artist, who dares defying the norms of time’. The works of Jeppe Ernst has been performed by Danish and international musicians and ensembles such as NEKO3, SCENATET, NJYD Quartet and Ly Tran at SPOR Festival, KLANG Festival, Copenhagen Stage and Frequenz Festival, among others.

Jakob Bloch Jespersen is a trained singer from the Royal Danish Academy of Music and the Royal Danish Opera Academy. He has sung in a number of roles at, among others, the Royal Theatre, the Danish National Opera, the New Opera in Esbjerg and Opera Hedeland. Jakob Bloch Jespersen is a concert singer in demand across all of Europe and he has performed with ensembles such as Concerto Copenhagen, Lautten Compagney, Arte Die Suonatori, Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra, Athelas Sinfonietta, London Sinfonietta, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin and Theatre of Voices.

Èmile Sadria was trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts by professor Gerard Byrne and from Les Beaux Arts de Paris in France. His works have been shown at Musée Elyseé in Switzerland, GOLD+BETON in Germany, Fotografisk Center, Galleri Martin Asbæk, Arken, Maison du Bresil in France and Whitechapel gallery in Great Britain.

For more information, contact

Solveig Lindeskov Ingendahl, Edition·S
solveig@edition-s.dk / +45 3022 4004

Malthe Kouassi Bjerregaard, Medicinsk Museion
malthebj@sund.ku.dk / +45 2875 3819

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