Katinka Hurvig

Category: Writings

  • DE GAMLE AFSLAGS EFTERMÆLE

    , ,

    hvis nu jeg valgte bare én ting
    for eksempel at være ked af det over endnu et (dobbelt)afslag fra statens kunstfond
    eller at være vred i stedet
    at grine og skåle i gravøl,
    eller at tage til Lejre med min søsters børn og glemme alt om det en enkelt lørdag i livet

    hvis nu jeg kunne vælge bare ét projekt

    projektet om partnervold,
    om at det tager 7 forsøg at forlade et voldeligt forhold, om den grønne og gule og røde fase og normaliseringen, om benægtelsen og skammen og alt det min veninde beskrev for mig, da vi var idérige og optimistiske i maj måned op til deadlinen

    eller projektet om alderdommen,
    som egentlig er om ungdom men som kommer fra gamle mennesker, som da jeg interviewede min mormor før hun døde, projektet vi har større drømme for end jeg havde i 2021

    eller projektet om børns forhold til døden,
    eller projektet om brud og skilsmisser og toxic dynamikker i chef-ansat-ægtefælle-veninde-kæreste-og-endnu-flere-slags-relationer
    eller projektet baseret på den bog jeg hulkede over da jeg var 25 og følte mig som enough,
    eller projektet om opmærksomhedsøkonomi og frelst uafhængighed,
    eller projektet om radikalisering og identitetsforstyrrelse,

    eller projektet om et parforhold i balance
    om en større lejlighed
    om at kunne forblive i københavn,
    om at have tid til at opbygge et forhold til alle mine veninders mange børn, om aftensmad på hverdage når de alle har fri fra arbejde,

    hvis jeg er heldig får jeg et arbejde,
    hvis jeg er heldig formår jeg på et tidspunkt at vælge én ting af gangen
    rådgiveren fra udviklingsplatformen sagde at jeg kunne ”gå hele vejen” hvis jeg fokuserede
    honey thats all i wanna do

    men guess fucking what

    tingene smitter af
    jeg kan ikke få en idé uden at se Mr. Robot
    jeg kan ikke få en idé uden at lave en forestilling om noget andet først,
    jeg kan ikke få en idé uden at skrive ansøgninger til open calls
    jeg kan ikke få en idé uden at snakke med mine veninder
    jeg kan ikke få en idé uden at forstå hvad det er, min kæreste gennemgår for tiden, i detaljer detaljer detaljer for ellers fatter jeg ham ikke
    jeg kan ikke få en idé hvis der er noget jeg fatter i forvejen
    og tænk engang, der er meget jeg ikke fatter i forvejen så der er mange idéer i kataloget

    og jeg er stolt af mit kaoskatalog,
    stolt af 303 siders tekster der aldrig er blevet til andet end den næste,
    stolt af 14 notesbøger fra diverse små tasker på diverse røgbodegaer mens diverse dates kom for sent og jeg måtte finde på noget at lave i ventetiden,
    stolt af alt det ubrugte materiale jeg ved har lagret sig,
    stolt af de mennesker jeg har mødt på vejen og som også har mødt mig,
    stolt af at de vil lege med mig
    og stolt af de ansøgninger, vi sendte ind
    stolt af at der er så meget, de har kunnet give mig afslag på

    Så hvorfor er det så fucked up pinligt at få afslag igen?
    Hvorfor klarede jeg kun dagen i onsdags ved at slette instagram?
    Hvor putter man frustrationen hen, når ens medie er ord og rum, men man bor i en toværelses med skråvægge og ikke har et atelier man kan kaste med maling og porcelæn i?
    Computeren føles ikke helt som det tove ditlevesen lovede mig,
    alligevel skriver jeg for at overleve,
    for at huske mit håb og min stolthed
    for at gøre brug af i det mindste mine fingerspidser med ualmindeligt flotte firkantede magnetiske sølvglimrende plasticnegle

    Men er det bare vores lod at rase, at ærges og bokses sønder og sammen hvert eneste år efter 12 ugers uskyldigt bliss
    eller 12 ugers angst afhængig af hvad der står på bankkontoen hos os eller vores kærester,
    12 uger hvor vi ikke kan gøre mere og kaster os i bølgerne og glemmer alt om det, vores hjerter bankede for i starten af juni,

    Kan det passe at vi skal splitte vores personligheder i to
    Welcome back til afslagsudgaven af dem, vi er,
    os, som dem med magt ikke vil kendes ved
    eller os, som dem med magt mest af alt og værst af alt er en anelse ligeglade med,
    sommerferien sluttede brat og på mandag vil jeg vælge hvem, jeg skal skrive mails til,
    jeg vil vælge et eller to projekter og vide at resten af kataloget er sprængfuldt i rygsækken, fulde af kvarte idéer der nu lever videre i de to projekter jeg ringer til nogen om på mandag,

    Men ikke i aften
    I aften sidder jeg på toftegårds bodega og skåler for alt det, der ikke fik lov at ske, vel vidende om at det gør det næste, der skal ske, væsentligt bedre

  • nyc ’26 – week 3

    , , , ,

    It’s
    going home and returning to my house to find is has expanded.

    The floorboards are a little wider, a couple more shelves above the stove, and extra broom in the cupboard.

    Everything’s a little more but exactly where it used to be,
    grand street is still close to the part we did a fotoshoot in,
    but now I’m stopping to watch teenagers play basketball on my way over there.

    I’m retracing my footsteps while finding new mugs in the drawers,
    drinking the same coffee from other cafes,
    cold brew is still cold brew
    but I never knew the name of this street before,
    never thought of it as anything other than transit to a location i had come to know and adore.

    But there’s no transit in this city.

    Everything’s location and everyone’s characters,
    my shot list is infinite and however much I zoom out,
    the frame will be packed with stories,
    trash and misplaced items,
    abandoned furniture and
    rats in front og high end stores I’ve never dared to enter but might do
    next time I come back
    to an expansion of New York.

    raccoon in central park // hiding spot for favourite fictional characters // last lunch with amazing food and amazing friend // alex trying out a new AR piece // me and j. alex and a crocheted flower keyring // a gallon of ice tea for next to no money // dan and annie at lil dj set in fulton park // name tag with importance in a show called infinite wrench // exhibition at guggenheim // skyscrapers // mirror kiss // reunion with director kristin and her hot cocoa // friend in sheep meadow talking about the skyscrapers // bus stop stop

    <3

    week 3 was final week

    this time around

  • rehearsals: the right of the strong, the duty of the weak

    , , ,

    another opera for me
    another shit ton of stuff i didn’t know about
    but not as much
    not as much as last time
    the score isn’t on an ipad this time
    and this time it’s a partitur not a score because we’re (mostly) working within the danish language
    this time i won’t leave before musical rehearsals begin
    i’ll be there for the costumes,
    for the makeup
    for the musicians
    the set’s been here all along because this time we’re not rehersing in a gloriously free but not gloriously decorated space on gansewoort st. in the west village

    this time baby we’re in the library
    an ancient one
    a splendid one
    a sacred one
    where the words of the history that’s been written reside
    someone wrote the words and mostly tourists come to read them, or to see that they exist,
    nevertheless they exist
    as does the set
    as will the lighting
    as will the choir
    as do the circus artists
    as does the solists, the prop designer, my production partner in crime, the choreogrpher, the director and me, lil me, co-director and assistant to her, Her, another opera master i never knew about,
    ive started to miss afuk
    started to think huh, i should have become a circus artist
    next week ill probably think huh, i guess i really am nowhere near close being an opera singer,
    but i used to climb trees
    used to swing in rings
    used to balance on my uncle’s shoulders
    now my niece balances on mine
    maybe one day there’ll be more swinging
    more balancing, more acrobaticts, pilates isn’t bad, we’ll see whatever i do with this, this thing i’m experiencing, this thing that’s accumulating in my curious bones

  • greenwich

    It’s actually mad how many names of locations here in london are the same as the ones I’ve familiarized myself with in new york.

    It was mad when I walked from the hotel to the venue back in Sydney and there was a Hyde Park
    I knew there was another hyde park, in the uk, in England, in London
    The one I’m moving to tomorrow, a hostel right by hyde park, a “grim but central” area I’ve been told
    The hyde park I’ve booked a swim session in for Tuesday, morning session 10-1:30, it’s hotter in London that I thought it would be and the booking was cheaper than I’d feared

    It was mad when a friend of mine, older and wiser but dumber and more reckless, said to me when we arrived in Manchester a while ago, “these houses remind me of new york. But of course they are actually English. I never thought of that” and I had not even thought to think of that, and he was right, and then I went to new york for a long while and thought for the first week how the town houses looked British until they became American again, until they were the peak new york town houses I’d seen in Girls and Sex and the City, the ones that to me had always been new york and new york only until my grown up companion made that casual remark in a cab in Manchester

    And now we’re all here, we’ve moved to New York
    We’ve found a nice little rental near a sweet little school
    Now I’m looking at houses with four or five floors
    And you’ve found us a brownstone, said, -‘

    A brownstone, that’s the word
    The houses here are houses with two or three or four floors, the stones that are them are brown
    And I’m in London now, here to walk the brownstone streets and to see the west end theatres,
    Im a west end girl now
    Confused as fuck by architecture and colonialism
    It’s staring me in the face, from every corner of every building here in the residential area of hackney or Clapton or whichever it is,

    And the names of the street
    Are titles to songs

    And the names of the areas
    are titles to albums

    And the names of neighborhoods
    are also the names of neighborhoods in new york

    I didn’t know there was another Greenwich

    But I’ve always known about the international date line, it cuts through Greenwich, ive always been really proud to remember that fact because it gave me a sense of absolution,
    this is where somebody decided for time to begin
    And though, bitterly obvious now, it was made to start in a british territory, in the artificially established geographical point to where Japan would become
    “the far east”,

    I guess I never linked the two,
    the Greenwich and the Greenwich Village in west Manhattan,
    and I don’t think I even knew the date-greenwich was IN London,
    I thought;
    surely,
    a small town somewhere,
    in the English countryside, a sort of geological wonder, maybe a magnetic pole with any, just any sort of natural force to justify why this is where time would begin and end,

    But it’s in London,
    Its in a planetarium, made by people hired by people who dared to establish such a thing in the middle of their office which im sure must be similar to the oval one across the sea, their cousins of violence in another white house, contaminated by whatever name the virus must be called.

    I’ll be going there today,
    to Greenwich, not the one by the rehearsal space for the opera I used to work on, not the Greenwich village with rosetta pizza and the whitney museum with free admittance some fridays,
    but Greenwich, the London area, following my fathers recommendation, im sure its really nice, im sure my father clocked these connections decades ago,

    Im actually now sure that’s the reason the new yorkers don’t call it Greenwich village but “the village” and “east village”,
    I assume theyre removing themselves from everything Britain,

    Just like everything Britain is removing itself from everyone else,

    Soon they’ll be islands lost in connections but securely fixed in time and geography, because once upon a time, their mutual ancestors decided that everything would begin 6,8 miles from the café im sat in on Chatsworth road, London, England, uk, Europe, central Europe, central, central, central.

  • my heart, my mind and my body goes on three separate strolls

    is there such a thing as a big break?
    is there such a time as time wasted?
    is any care, thought, heart and blood ever poured into an irrelevant application ever lost?

    where does it go?
    where does my heart go?


    If my heart, rejected by a boss in a office I’d love to one day be mine, is thrown out of her window, fallen down into the sidewalk, 3 floors down from the office I wasn’t allowed to interview in, not for this job and maybe not ever any,
    say it survives the fall, my tired heart,
    does it get up?
    Does it cross the street, buy a cappuchino and take a second to sit?
    Say my heart breathes in, breathes out, breathes in, looks up,
    sees the boss in her window, standing there staring confused into the direction of my steadily calmer heart, does it wave at her?
    Does it let her know it’s still around?
    Let’s say my heart does a polite nod, let’s say it recognises the boss’ time and skill to select, though an obvious disagreement in this manner is on the table,
    let’s say it nods and gets up,
    goes for a stroll
    away from me, the body across town,
    the body accompanied by the mind still not in the know, the body and the mind happily wandering the blocks waiting for a decision to be made by somebody else, waiting for the e-mail.
    My heart takes a different turn, finds itself looking at two dogs spotting one another, barking excitedly, my heart keeps going down the street and remembers a line from the application denied. There was something about arguing, and the dogs reminded my heart, there was a sentence somewhere worthy of reading again, at some point.
    The heart forgets a minute later, and the mind wouldn’t know.
    The two aren’t really connected, not since the application was sent, they haven’t seen a lot of each other lately.
    My heart hasn’t spent much time with the body either, the body has been taking care of the body, the heart used to hang only with the mind.
    Right now the mind is somewhere else, to the heart is doesn’t make a difference, because my heart knows that this one is for her.

    It’s for my heart to bear,
    to feel the weight of another rejection,
    for her to pump the tears through the other, the body, into the eyes, of the body, all the way out into the world.
    The body doesn’t do anything unless the heart says so, and for now the heart wants to keep this to herself.
    My heart is solitary this evening, as she walks the streets of the neighbourhood she won’t be working in.
    Did she ever really want to work here?
    The mind isn’t here to tell her yes,
    yes she did,
    but my heart doesn’t need an answer.
    My heart feels the imprint of opportunities lost, of ideas created, of possibilities potential to come around. It’s what the mind would tell my heart, but she doesn’t need to hear it. My heart watches a bus approach another bus on the same line, they are poorly timed in proximity to each other, my heart feels the annoyance of passengers waiting for that first bus that turned out to arrive not more than two seconds before the next, and the heart feels the relief of the passengers getting on either way.
    My heart isn’t wondering, she knows how they’re feeling, she feels it and knows that what matters more than another rejection is arriving somewhere,
    to a home or a hope,
    to a previous stranger turned friend, to a certain corner of a park, to a decision to keep applying.
    My wasted heart knows it’s exhausted, but attaches no meaning to the feeling, she feels and continues, until the moon disappears from her window later tonight. My heart will mostly feel sad, and then she will rest and reset, the sadness will remain until sunlight and through the early morning hours the sadness will have turned purple, transformed into a melancholy sense of frustration and hope, grief for another lost parallel life, hope for another moment of freely beating, the day after tomorrow my heart will be light, well rested, beating like before the e-mail.
    It will be up to the mind to deal with the aftermath, of the strategizing and looking through open calls,
    of fundraising
    and deciding where to begin from scratch,
    where to keep building and where to give up,
    and the body will be soar from pilates and doing its best
    to eat, sleep and kiss in the meantime,
    to host the matter of two organs more heavily burned than the body itself,
    the mind will have to carry a lot of weight in the upcoming weeks, and my heart knows this, so my heart will be feeling sad in order to feel warm, give warmth and to keep pumping oxygen and perspective through the body into the mind,
    to each one’s own,
    my heart has done its job because even though we didn’t get the job, a job was done and the job wouldn’t have been done without it, without her, my heart.

    My heart decides that it is time to come home,
    the heart comes home and finds the rest of me,
    the moon is starting to rise and that means she will be sad for only half another night, into the sadness she goes, into the sadness and through.

  • de næste minutter

    ,

    I forgårs offentliggjorde vi Out Of Office.
    I forgårs åbnede jeg instagram 47 gange, forsøgte at tage et screenshot men så skiftede klokken til efter midnat og tælleren resettede.
    Carol havde samme babyengel-t-shirt som mig på det hotte gule billede og jeg har screenshottet alles søde lykønskningsbeskeder og eller ildemojis, adrenalinen er så kortvarig når den hænder så hurtigt, så direkte og så direkte videre.

    Har endelig købt et ur,
    så nu kan jeg lægge min telefon langt væk fra mig i stuen uden at stresse over om jeg misser bussen på de isglatte veje.

    Uret hænger på væggen, under uret to billeder som Stine og Steph tegnede til mig på min 28 års fødselsdag,
    om et par uger fylder jeg 30 og nu har vi lukket MAGMA

    I går mødtes vi, de sidste tre, Stine og ikke Steph men Kristina, og mig, og fire kopper kaffe for Stine kom senere end vi gjorde og havde ikke set, at jeg havde taget en kop til hende i forvejen,
    og vi ringede til virk (igen)
    og vi loggede ind i netbanken igen, to gange,
    og ændrede hjemmesidens kontaktoplysninger til mine,
    og skrev et referat men de sagde i virk at de ikke skulle bruge et referat
     – det kom meget bag på os men intet brok skulle lyde fra os –
    så vi klikkede på to knapper og så var det slut,
    aftalte at tage ud og danse om to uger,
    MAGMA er lukket og jeg beholder html’en indtil jeg får hostet det på mit eget domæne,
    beholder gmailen så alle de publikummer, der skrev breve til deres fremtids-selv for to år siden, stadig kan få autosendt de scannede papirer i løbet af de næste 48 år,
    om 48 år fylder jeg 78,
    gad vide om Out Of Office var det sidste CVR-nummer jeg fik, eller bare nummer to,
    gad vide om det blev den svære to’er eller det perfekte næste skridt,
    Anders er blevet far og i aften skal vi møde hans datter

  • vokser nok

    ,

    Helt børnet, med jakken over mine kolde ben i den stribede sofa,
    tog hen i absalon fordi der er billigst
    penge har ikke så meget med alder at gøre skulle det vise sig

    Jeg er stenrig for jeg har optjent en dagpengeret, ludfattig når jeg taler med mine højskolevenner med uddannelser

    Anders er lige blevet far og jeg tænker, jeg godt kunne være mor, hvis en mor altså også godt må græde lidt hver dag og føle sig pavestolt af et squash-bananbrød med havregryn,-

    sundhed har heller ikke så meget at gøre med alder skulle det vise sig,-

    Stine sagde jeg lignede en baby på et billede fra 2017, jeg har aldrig gået mere i fitness end jeg gør som 29årig og mine yogashorts har aldrig mast min mave mere udover kanten end den gør nu,-

    skønhedsidealer er heller ikke så aldersbegrænset som man kunne håbe,-

    jeg har lyttet og læst til kun fantasy, kun set reality og haft meget få samtaler om geopolitik i de sidste måneder, i forhold til hvor meget man kunne have talt om geopolitik i de her måneder,
    har ændret min måde at se på historier og fiktion på, har udvidet mit begreb for skønlitteratur og forestillingsevne, for fantasi og betydning af at tillægge mening til ting, vi ikke kan forklare.

    Har malet en væg gul, min søster kaldte den mere solgul end karrygul,
    fundet og bestilt og købt og samlet og sat en hylde op på det gule,
    fandt med nød og næppe rawplugs, der passede,
    for et år siden vidste jeg ikke der var forskel på typer af bor,
    for et år siden havde jeg aldrig malet en væg i en farve,
    for et år siden skrev jeg også en ansøgning til et arbejdslegat men dengang brugte jeg ikke Canva,

    Jeg tror jeg vokser, jeg skrumper i hvert fald ikke, vokser hen imod solen forhåbentlig, men skal huske at passe på indeklimaet så min kæreste ikke skal klippe alle mine døde blade af mig i vintermånederne

  • loved ones of january ’26

    ,

    i feel like typing the lyrics of the song i’m listening to
    like im back to being 14 and careless
    like i think i know what hallelujah is about,
    like when i started squinting my eyes as i was biking while listening to “copenhagen”, so the traffic lights would turn blurred and magical,
    as he sang the long note –
    returning from a high school party,
    not old enough to find a club or probably too scared,
    happily quoting anything i felt,
    everything i thought i heard and loved,
    du er kun alt jeg har –
    i’m back in a suburb of copenhagen,
    a suburb before i knew that word,
    before i knew about picket fences,
    before i knew what songs were about but felt it all the same,
    i felt it all the same,
    og dine øjne,
    lyser mig hjem når jeg får nok –
    back to when all i had were people i loved and a feeling that something was about to happen,
    i didn’t know how right i was but i felt it all the same,
    på at male mine sorte

    fortæl dem jeg ikke venter mere
    tell them i won’t be waiting anymore

  • new year 25/26

    , , ,

    it’s has really not been very long
    but already i’ve

    had conversations of consciousness
    (digitally, one-sidedly with a philip pullman-interview)
    (this morning, during coffee, while realizing i hadn’t even told my boyfriend the plot of the secret commonwealth yet and quickly changed that fact)
    (this afternoon, at café castro, both nanna and i referencing the telepathy tapes without knowing the other one has heard it too)

    watched two movies, one in cinema, one at home, both on family relationships and about letting go

    co-carried the front banner of a pro-palestinian protest, my mom walking right behind me

    had multiple guests over
    (one crashing from new years eve’s party)
    (one in my windowsill alongside me)

    referenced my therapist two at least one other friend

    had sex

    made a medium quality dinner once, made multiple less-than-so’s

    cleaned the apartment, scooping up the final pieces of broken glass from the party the night before

    steamed milk in new electric milk foamer

    finished a book

    i have not biked yet
    tomorrow i start work
    tomorrow i start biking
    tomorrow i’ll return the book to the library, finally, but not until i’ve scanned the quotes on the pages i’ve folded, it might take a while, wishing other people are better at returning them than I am so i can read the 3rd and final one in the trilogy very, very soon

    tomorrow’s monday and it’s already been many lifes, tomorrow’s starting another one, it’s perfectly timed, i hadn’t even realized i was writing this in english, i’m ready for the next life to start tomorrow, maybe it’ll taste a bit like a former one of mine

  • an old concept of new-ness

    ,

    January 2nd, 9.19 pm 

    have been thinking noticeably little about the turn of the year this time
    have been thinking noticeable much about the turn of life this summer
    and a lot about death between Christmas and new years, visited grandma and grandpas graves and had some hot chocolate with them
    have been calling the unemployed office a little too often to orchestrate a new way of life as fulltime freelancer,
    well timed and well prepared,
    the new beginning happened when Svante and I filed for business registration in the cantina of the Playhouse,
    or when Svante and Anna and I finally brainstormed our way through to a name that made us shut up,
    with a pen in hand and a mindmap notebook in one of the bars at Sønder Boulevard,
    the decision has been made for a while now, weeks, almost months,
    it’s just the turn of the year that hasn’t kept up with me and my changes 


    the year has been behind,
    the weather hasn’t adjusted to my mood,
    it didn’t rain when I had symptoms of stress one da y in September,
    and it hasn’t started snowing until today, 9 days after I went ice skating with my niece,
    the weather was calm when my brain was roaming, ruminating and worrying, when I was restless for a month and attempting to map out a future,
    last year the sun was shining at odd times,
    it was raining too little according to how much I’ve been crying,
    November was blissful, but also the only time where I used my rain coat and wrapped a scarf around my head, on my way to a functional workplace and returning on my bike with a head full of inspiration and referencer,
    clouds everywhere 

    I’ve decided to refrain from alcohol the rest of the month,
    the whole month, minimum,
    but yesterday I was so hungover that I don’t know if it counts,
    but it do know that nobody counts,
    so I’ll be drinking water and hoping to avoid eating the matching amount in chips, we’ll see if cigarette will become the thing my fingers can fiddle with next time I hit Osbourne,
    or if I’ll manage to better my presence in a new way

    this first week of January,
    I’ll be trying to better my presence in a new way,
    have to find out what that way is but I’m positive it’ll have to do with my windowsill and silence,
    maybe I’ll try not to talk about my own day this week,
    old school new, but presently new,
    conceptually new,
    after all I’m still me