Abbreviation, 2016,

54 x 39 cm, 4 coloured photogravure, edition of 20 pieces

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This piece is made with 4 photopolymer plates as part of my Barbados project. The print is a still from the film, separated into 4 colors for the plates and then collected again on paper under pressure from the press. It all began long ago with an email from a scammer from Barbados. I replied and an enthusiastic correspondence unfolded. The dialogue is about fiction, fact and utopia! Before our dialogue came to an end, Fergal the scammer had, on my request, traveled across the island to document Bajan pop star Rihanna's home. Time passes and the scammer begins writing me again a year later. One thing leeds to another and I find myself on an isolated beach on the other side of the planet—continuously writing his now dead email account. Pregnant, slightly confused but intensively alert, I am gliding around in Riri's world. Through my camera I discover the ruin of Paradise Beach Club. This throws me back into a J. G. Ballard book about an imaginary vacation resort for artists and wealthy eccentrics. Intensely I google Riri paddling these very waters. I paddle myself on a cheap foam surfboard. The Barbados days are strikingly saturated, yet profoundly slow. And so warm. I keep googling, remembering, emailing, filming it all. Detached from the everyday hassle, I think differently (dream-like) and I keep writing. Eventually, my mind gets the googled paddle photos mixed up with Peter Doig's melting canoe paintings. This, amongst other Island experiences, builds the core of my recent workflow. Super skilled filmmaker Simon Möller is post producing the film. Similar to what I am trying to do with paint in my studio, we have bathed the clips in aesthetics inspired by travel magazines. Here the water is cyan-colored, the sky is blue and all plants are greeeen (not the yellow-brown of reality). We are going for a composed ambience—reminiscent too of Sci-fi and early Net Art. Tina Sauerländer has written the afterword for the publication that consists of two books with the emails and one book with film stills. About the film she writes: “A huge cruise ship landing on a small picturesque island resembles a collage ignoring any scale or proportion. It looks unreal and the observer can hardly believe his own eyes. This feeling of disbelief haunts the reader of “My Bajan Letters” and leads to his wish to verify the information given. He googles. Nowadays anything you can’t find there does not exist. There is no need to visit any place physically, because when you can google it, it is there—and you could just photoshop yourself into the image. The artist sitting on Rihanna’s beach almost looks too good to be true. Was she really there? Was Fergal ever there? At the end of the film, Peter Doig’s Red Canoe melts into a googled image of Rihanna on a surfboard at a beach in Barbados… at least Rihanna was really there”.

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Ditte Ejlerskov, who lives and works in Malmö, Sweden, was born in 1982 in Frederikshavn, Denmark. She graduated from Malmö Art Acedemy in 2009. Recent selected shows and projects include: THE MINAJ SHOW, Sommer & Kohl, Berlin, DE (solo 2015), Bow Down Bitches, LARMgalleri, Copenhagen, DK (solo 2014), Syster, Borås konstmuseum, SE (group 2014), A sip of COOL, Galerie Arnaud Deschin, Marseille, FR (group 2014), About: The Blank Pages, Malmö Konsthall, SE (duo 2014), Paradise Reclaimed, Galleri Nord-Norge, NO (group 2012), Alongside, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, Texas, US (group 2014), We Found Love in a Hopeless Place, Elastic Gallery, Malmö, SE (solo 2013), Full Arch, Crystal Contemporary, Stockholm, SE (solo 2011), My African Letters, LARMgalleri, Copenhagen, DK, Carnegie Art Award 2012, Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki, FI (group 2012), The Collector, Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala, SE (group 2012), In Search of Eden, CCA , Andratx, SP (duo 2012), Claude Rutault – L’exposition continue (écho), CNEAI, Chatou, FR (group 2011),Unbreak my heart, say you’ll love me again, MFA exam show, KHM, Malmö, SE (solo 2009).

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