Photography Based Visual Artist

Maja Nydal is a photography-based visual artist. Her practice explores participatory forms of representation. She uses photography as a tool of emancipation through which different kinds of citizenship and community can be enacted. Majas work often renegotiate media representations working with the people in question on an alternative storyline.

This process goes far beyond creating images and also includes workshops, educational programs and live storytelling by the participants. To get a larger audience engaged in the new storyline the showings include, city halls, libraries, cultural centers, outdoor locations and art halls.

Solo

2020 100% FREMMED? Kongens Nytorv, Denmark

2019 100%FREMMED? KunstCentret Silkeborg Bad, Silkeborg, Denmark

2017-19 100%FREMMED? Shows in 20 cities in Denmark in collaborations with art halls, municipalities and institutions across the country, including showings by Art Museum Brundlund Slot, Vejle Art Museum and Roskilde Museum For Contemporary Art, - produced in collaboration with METROPOLIS

2018 Dongcheng Happyness Map, The Danish Cultural Center, Beijing

2018 100% Copenhagen, The Danish Cultural Center, Beijing

2018 Awaiting The Bridge, outdoor exhibition in i Jincheng Township arranged by Local Methodology, Kinmen, Taiwan

2017 100%FREMMED?, Copenhagen City Hall

2016 Possible Playgrounds, Museum for Roma Culture, Bucharest

2015 100% Copenhagen, Taipei Design & City Exhibit, Taipei

2014 100% Copenhagen, The Museum of Copenhagen, Produced in collaboration with METROPOLIS, Copenhagen City Hall, and outdoor exhibitions in each of the 10 areas of the capital region.

2012 Brain Lab, Panum Institute, Copenhagen

Group Shows

2025 Fotografia Calabria Festival

2023 Helsinki Fotofestival

2023 sf Rotterdam Photofestival

2022 Walking Landscapes, Metropolis platform for art in public space, Skagen Denmark

2020 URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE, Journal of visual anthropology and visual landscapes

2019 Aiuarat, Contemporary artspace Bucharest

2017 Portrait Now! The Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark, Ljungbergmuseet, Sweden

2016 Life Framer, A World Of Cultures, ClampArt Gallery New York, Menier Gallery London, RPS Gallery Tokyo

2015 Bucharest Microtopias, ARCUB contemporary art space, Bucharest

2012 The Artists’ Autumn Exhibition (KE), censured group exhibition, Den Frie, Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen

2011 Fragments, Fatamorgana Graduate Exhibition, Gallopperiet, Copenhagen

2011 Indoors//Outdoors, collaboration with Simone Lilmoes, Copenhagen Photo Festival; Bjerget, By og Havn, Dansk Industri, Copenhagen

2009 Værker Der Virker, collaboration with Mette Præst, Line Møller and Ida Martin, Charlottenborg contemporary art space, Copenhagen

Awards

Artbeat Talent Prize, nomination for the talentprice

The Carlsberg Foundation's Portrait Award, Special Prize, Contemporary Nordic and Chinese Portrait Award

Global Campus Of Human Rights Visual Contest, Winning portrait.

Life Framer, A World Of Cultures, First Prize

Grants

Support by the Danish Arts Council, Augustinusfonden, Traditionen Tro.

Support by the Danish Arts Council, Intercultural Center, Knud Højgaards Fond, Nordea Fonden for 100% FREMMED?

Support by the Danish Arts Council for Dongcheng Happyness Map, Beijing

Residencies

2018 Institute For Provocation, Beijing

2017 ARCUB, Bucharest

Media

Danish: Kunsten Nu, Kulturmonitor, Politikken, VICE, Journalisten, Jyllandsposten, Berlinske, P1, Radio 24/7, TV2.

International: Financial Times, The Guardian

Publications and reviews

Peripeti

100% Theatre and Visual Art

By Erik Exe Christoffersen, Lector at Institute for Culture and Communication, Aarhus University.

https://tidsskrift.dk/peripeti/article/view/132301/177576

CoSMo

Longing for Arrival: Visual Representations of Cultural Mis/Encounters

By Alina Predescu, Film and Media PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley

file:///Users/majanydaleriksen/Downloads/4022-Articolo-13014-1-10-20191223.pdf

CoSMo

Human Transitions, Global Change

By Chaiara Simonigh, Professor at The Department for Visual Media and Culture studies, Torino University

100% Fremmed?

HUMANITIES, “In the First Place, We Don’t Like to Be Called ‘Refugees’”: Dilemmas of Representation and Transversal Politics in the Participatory Art Project 100% FOREIGN?

By Anne Ring, Professor at Art and Cultural Science, Copenhagen University.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/10/4/126

Journal of Transcultural Studies, Transculturality, Postmigration, and the Imagining of a New Sense of Belonging.

By Anne Ring, Professor at Art and Cultural Science, Copenhagen University.

https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/article/view/24140/17940

https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/index

Research Report, Living Together, fostering cultural pluralism through the arts.

By Kim Rygiel, Professor, The Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada.

https://www.iksv.org/en/reports/living-together-fostering-cultural-pluralism-through-the-arts

Possible Playgrounds

Portrait Now, af Mikhail Ovehinnikov, museumsdirektør Fabergé Museum, St. Petersburg.

100% København

Changing Metropolis, Trevor Davies, kunstnerisk leder, Metropolis. DK

Awaiting The Bridge

Local Mythology, Ting-Chi Wang, Founder, Local Mythology, Curator Brooklyn Museum. Taiwan.

URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE, Steve Bisson, Professor at Paris College of ArtUniversity of Kansas

Indoor/Outdoor

Copenhagen Photofestival

Other

Member of BKF, The Danish Association of Visual Artists

Vice President, Institute for Intercultural Art and communication

Teacher, UNESCO Associated Schools Network and Engelsholm Højskole / art school Denmark.

Contact

M: nydalmaja@gmail.com

Maja Nydal, UNION, Nørre Allé 7. 2200 Copenhagen N