FRIHED, LIGHED OG SYMPTOM / LIBERTY, EQUALITY, AND SYMPTOM is a hand-carved relief in recycled XPS foam, installed in the blood bank waiting room at Midt- og Vestsjællands Hospital as part of FORSTADIER / PRECURSORS. The carving is accompanied by an insect-like Caduceus, 3D-printed in RPETG and finished with urethane paint—a husk-like fragment of a potential new language for medicine. Installation photo: Morten K Jacobsen. Curated by Morten K Jacobsen.
The work reinterprets the triad of the French Revolution—Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité—within the specific atmosphere of the hospital. Here, Symptom takes the place of *Fraternité." In this space, the symptom is what mediates the relationship between the individual and the state; a duty performed to navigate the right to care.
The relief sits in a room where people wait for blood tests and the arrival of Flextrafik, accompanied by the sound of daytime television. It is a shared space of waiting, where the commonality is found in the bureaucratic process of being seen and the time spent between evaluations.
The Insect-Caduceus—merging the medical staff with segmented anatomy—points toward an emerging somatic language. It asks how care is shaped when mediated by administrative logic and clinical taxonomy, and what forms of life might exist within those institutional margins.
The relief was hand-carved from a sketch generated by a locally run AI model, powered by certified green energy. By pulling a digital hallucination into physical foam, the automated bias of the model is given a material, institutional weight.
FORSTADIER / PRECURSORS is a duo exhibition with Aske Thiberg (@askweee), circling the iconography of the healthcare system—the clinical room, the language of care, the institutional forms—with detours into bias in language models, datasets, isolation, and alienation.
On view until 11 April 2026.
Ringsted Galleriet, Bøllingsvej 15 — open Saturdays 13:00–16:00 or by appointment. Midt- og Vestsjællands Hospital, Bøllingsvej 30 — open weekdays 08:00–15:00 or by appointment. 4100 Ringsted. ringstedgalleriet.dk @ringstedgalleriet
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