The Demo Room at Galleri Image

G.T-Shirts
Aysha Amin (DK)

October 22 - December 19, 2021 in The Demo Room at Galleri Image

G.T-Shirts is a collection of t-shirts picturing residential apartments in Gellerup - a suburb of Aarhus that is infamous in Denmark as one of the country's oldest 'hard ghettos' (an official government classification). These buildings are often portrayed in Danish media as derelict, with images that support the dominant narrative that Gellerup is in need of rehabilitation. Many of these buildings are being torn down as part of a joint effort by the municipality and the local housing association to gentrify and demolish the area in response to Gellerup's persistent inclusion in the Danish government's "Ghetto List."

G.T-Shirts presents an alternate view of Gellerup. Since 2019, the artist-run cultural platform Andromeda 8220 has invited photographers to share images of Gellerup that center the architectural, functional, and aesthetic qualities of the apartment buildings. These images frame the buildings as welcoming and attractive, not something to be destroyed.

Once printed as G.T-shirts, the photographs are viewed in a new way - worn in public and private spaces, and encountered by others in the course of daily life. For many who wear them, the shirts have proven to be effective conversation starters about the buildings’ distinctive architecture and consequent value. Oftentimes, these conversations steer towards more political topics such as neighborhood change and gentrification. In this way the G.T-Shirts point to the potential of street fashion in political discourse.

However their installation in The Demo Room underscores the ways in which street wear is often appropriated and exploited by the fashion industry. With graffiti signage, the exhibition echoes fashion displays in nearby clothing store windows along the gallery’s trendy street.

About the artist
Aysha Amin (DK) is an artist, project manager, curator CAFx Aarhus Architecture Festival and co-founder of the art, culture and architecture platform Andromeda 8220, based in Gellerup. As the Aarhus correspondent writer for the international architecture magazine and platform The Funambulist, Amin engages with the politics of space and bodies. Amin’s works have been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 and at DAAD Galerie during the Berlin Biennale 2020, among other places.

Call & Response
G.T-Shirts is the tenth exhibition in Call & Response, a project that activates two window galleries as sites for collaborative exhibition-making. The two galleries are The Demo Room in Aarhus, Denmark and AirSpace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, UK. Amin developed this exhibition in response to Art Career Snakes + Ladders by Rebecca Davies, which maps the ups and downs of an artist's working life. Amin and Davies will explore their shared focus on artist-led, community-centered projects through a duo exhibition for the window venue at AirSpace Gallery in January 2022.

Call & Response is curated by Pamela Grombacher, in collaboration with AirSpace Gallery and Galleri Image.