A BITTERSWEET LETTER TO AN ANONYMOUS TEACHER

During the lockdown an article was published in a danish newspaper. The article started out by giving the information posters which are located at the academy a nickname. The poster informs on who to talk to when experiencing sexual harassment and / or abusive behaviour. In the article this poster was called “stikkerplakaten” or “the snitch poster” in English.

☞ This text was originally published as part of Rundgang 2020, at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

The article reminded me of something I experienced some years ago when I was on exchange. In my mind, I named this incident Le Magnifique Avventure: This was the title of the first course I participated in at the new school. The premise of the workshop was unclear from the beginning and apparently it was also unclear to the teachers who after arriving 45 minutes late shrugged their shoulders when we asked them what we were going to do. The course was supposed to last for 120 continuous hours (though I dropped out after three days), during which we were not allowed to go home or leave the group. The instructions we were given for preparation was to bring our passport, a sleeping bag and clothing for five days.

To me, the course resembled mostly a confused 70’s social experiment mixed with old-fashioned ideas of the artist as a male genius living on the edge of society above social norms and receiving divine inspiration through this liminal existence. I would like to give a description of the course on its own premises, but as I said, I am still unsure what the purpose of this kind of education is; so what I will do is to quote the description of the course provided by the teachers themselves:

“Suffering is almost necessary. All good stories need obstacles. Boredom is more difficult.“ – yairbarelli.com

The mention of suffering in an educational context should already have been a red flag for the administration of the school, but apparently it wasn’t.

The idea that narrations and adventures need suffering, obstacles and heroes is something Ursula K. Le Guin problematises in her essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. The narrative which was described for Le Magnifique Avventure is one which traditionally have been written by white men. It favours male perspective, has many problematic connotations of colonialism and eurocentrism and, of course, completely excludes women and minorities.

To me the overall experience was more of a sectarian nature and absolutely not educational and the outcome was highly doubtful. I won’t go into the whole adventure, the tiresome entirety of those three days of masculine egos, sexism, ignorance, incompetence, macho masochistic heroism and just general stupidity, which ended with me being confronted by the school’s security guards threatening to call the police since the teachers broke so many of the school’s own rules, as well as legal rules of society.

The first day of the avventure started out with an “artistic exercise” where the teacher asked us to write down something we would like to do and something we wouldn’t do. I wrote that I didn’t want to take my clothes of. The teacher then demanded me to get naked. Within the first 6 hours of enrollment, the teacher had already served us (the students) strong alcohol and told me to take off my clothes.

The purpose of the “exercise” was like everything else unclear to me and in the situation I was reluctant to abide by his demand.

The teacher didn’t understand this hesitation and was clearly annoyed with it. We then continued the next hour discussing wether or not I should keep my clothes on. I’m not sure why, but maybe as a kind of collective punishment since I didn’t wanted to do my part, this discussion then somehow turned into that everybody had to tell a secret which led to the students revealing highly intimate and personal information about themselves, which didn’t make the situation less uncomfortable.

The teachers aggressions towards me continued the following days, according to him I was “blocking the creative process” and he stated that I didn’t pay him respect, my behaviour was not acceptable, I was annoying etc. He also gave me a slight inside in the reason for his strange behaviour when he stated that he was in a relationship, but he was sexually frustrated. Information that I didn’t ask for and would have preferred not to have.

During this adventure many bizarre things happened and I am leaving out a lot of strange details – like how the teacher used a rape analogy to express his dissatisfaction with our work, how one teacher stole a student’s passport and then the huge consumption of alcohol initiated by the teachers. Things which sound like fiction when I am retelling it, but unfortunately weren’t.

Sadly, this was only the beginning. The next few months became a travel into a malfunctioning institution of nepotism, sexism, ignorance and incompetence. I saw many of the same destructive patterns that I was presented to in Le Magnifique Avventure manifested in the following teaching. The aftermath of the experience was equally saddening. When I complained of the sexism I experienced I was told “to do yoga” and confidential information about me was shared with my classmates when a teacher expressed her dissatisfaction with my person and behaviour.

What I gained from this experience was the knowledge that institutions are strong and I, as a single student, am weak; sexism is still being reproduced by institutions and there are still ignorant people in position of power.

When I returned to Copenhagen, I arrived just in time for the resignation of a professor. He left with the schools blessings, six months of pay and 500.000 DKK as a bonus. Later on, I could read the testimonies of students describing his problematic behaviour of faviouritism, sexual harassment and authority abuse in danish newspapers. An incident which looked troubling similar to the resignation of the head of the writing school a few years before. The writing school which is located at the same building as the academy and shares some of the same social circles.

And then this winter once again, a professor was suspended from the art academy due to complaints from students.

And just last week, 32 students from the photo school Fatamorgana complained about the abusive behaviour of the leader.

Most of all, I would like to forget about Le Magnifique Avventure and everything that followed. It felt shameful that I was put in this situation and that I was seen as weak enough to be dominated in this way. I would like to forget about this, but it is hard when the danish art scene and educational institutions are this heavily afflicted with sexual harassment and authority abuse. To this I can add that the public media finds it important again and again to represent opinions that would be more fitting a century ago.

The article in Weekendavisen was not a piece of high journalistic quality. Many of the terms being used were based on a superficial understanding of the subjects. It was written without any interest for context and was made from a clearly unreflected and privileged white/cis point of view.

Especially in light of the recent debate about racism it’s strange to hear white people stating that the (under)representation of minorities (and women) in the danish art scene is not a topic worth discussing.

What touched me the most was to see named and anonymous teachers appear in a context were people who speak against sexual harassment were indirectly called “snitches”. I am wondering what the anonymous teachers in that article would think about Le Magnifique Avventure. Is that good teaching? Is that a workshop which will qualify my artistic practice?

Am I wrong because I want to keep my clothes on when I go to school?

Do you, the anonymous teacher, who called me and my co-students institutionally infantilised, think that it is an infantilised claim to reject sexual aggressions from teachers? I hope that you, the anonymous teacher, regret being put in the article’s messy context. Maybe you had a point, but unfortunately it is drowning in the overall stupidity and ignorance of the piece. I hope that you at least can recognise that the statements made by Tal R are both embarrassing to him and the danish art scene which he, like you and me, represent. Unfortunately I don’t think you do.

You used your position and authority as a teacher and established artist, your influence and easy access to media, to legitimise these claims. You accepted the premise of the “stikkerplakat”/“snitch poster”, which I can only see as you either don’t see sexual harassment as an existing problem or that you see it, but you call it something else and don’t consider it to be a problem. In both cases we live in very different realities.

I am still wondering how in a world with so much injustice, what you choose to engage in is this claim. How this statement, was what called you to action and what you choose to use your position and influence to legitimise.

And consider this:

I am white, middle class, Danish and cis. My experiences and what I find to be unfair is at the very light end of the scale. You can multiply everything I experiences with x, for someone who is not in my privileged position.

You appear in a context where I am called a snowflake and a snitch, a hypersensitive, infantilised, apathetic, militant-feministic idiot. I’m told I am poison and that I am destroying the school for reasons which I am not sure I understand. I wish I could talk to you, try to understand what your frustration originates from. I wish that you could prove me wrong. That you could show me that how the reality I see is a distorted version.

I would love it if you could convince me that minorities are not being discriminated against and that sexual harassment doesn’t exists in educational institutions. Please prove me wrong.

And please tell me that what you are lamenting losing is not “your right” to get drunk at the school and do stupid things without being hold accountable; that your frustration is not because you have to think of the historic context if you want to do nudes; that it is not because it is too difficult to remember my pronoun. Please tell me that it is not because you expect sexual favours or you want to take advantage of students?

I wish I could talk to you, but I can’t since the same kind of anonymity that you find so problematic when students are reporting on cases of sexual harassment, is okay when you use it to call me and my co-students unflattering things in public media. I have always placed people with the kind of opinions you support in the periphery of my life. Now I know that you, though being masked, are right here: invisible but in front of me.

It doesn’t mean that I’m not appreciative towards your colleagues at the academy and grateful for everything they have helped me with during my years at this school. I would like to use this chance to express my utter appreciation to your colleagues. I have received so much help and support and everyone who I have been in regular contact with have been nothing but kind towards me. Many have stretched far beyond what anyone could expect. For that I’m grateful and for that I feel blessed. Unfortunately their extraordinary engagement doesn’t cancel your ignorance.

As I am reading your words, I have a collection of numbers flowing around in my head. It is a collection of abstract and maybe arbitrary numbers. It is numbers which creates a reality and which sadly keeps growing:

• Between 5-10 % of all reported rape and attempts of rape leads to conviction in Denmark. If the great dark number is taken into account, an estimate of only 0,4 % of all rapes leads to sentencing in Denmark.

• Every year 70.000 women die from unsafe abortion; 5 millions are admitted to hospitals due to the same reason.

• Female politicians in Denmark are harassed 4 times more than male.

• When men estimate that 31 % of women have experienced sexual harassment, the actual number is 80 % in Denmark.

• On average in a lifetime, a man with a high education earns 6 million DKK more than a woman with the same level of education.

• Only 2 % of the money spend on art auctions globally in the past 10 years was spent on works made by women.

• The risk of suicide more than doubles for women between age 15-19 when they start taking birth control pills.

These numbers are only a small part of the collection. The numbers are swimming around in my head, making me dizzy. They make a recipe for a dystopian society and a dark future.

In Weekendavisen’s article it is also stated that art can not be political. 

But what does “political” mean?

Politics is about how we live together in a community or a society.

Everything is political.

The private is political.

My body is political, as well as my intimate relationship, my salary, what kind of contraception I might choose to use or not.

My body is mine and it’s private. It’s mine, until some stranger on the street or a teacher in my school, thinks that it’s also his a little bit and he grabs me without my consent or he demands me to get naked.

Society decides to make rules saying that my body is mine, but then the rules are made and executed in ways that actually express the opposite.

The school decides to make rules saying that sexual harassment is not acceptable, but then the rules are made and executed in ways that express the opposite. And then my body is not mine and it’s public, and sexual harassment is a well-integrated and acceptable part of creative education.

Because who owns the body if only 5-10 % of those who are accused of abusing a body are sentenced?

And how can sexual harassment not be acceptable when those who are doing this are never, or only lightly, reprimanded?

Because guess what happened to the two teachers of Le Magnifique Avventure? Even though I was promised that they wouldn’t return to the school, they both returned shortly after and have continued with this specific course every year since.

All this is no news. Everything I say now have already been said many times before. It is strange to see the same facts and numbers mentioned again and again, and that these numbers never seem to change.

And even more important, everything which surfaces in the public media is only the very small tip of the iceberg. I have this absurd, sad but also somehow funny story of Le Magnifique Avventure. A story which, in the two mens’ extreme lack of self-reflection almost becomes a satire of the male artist, who, lost and confused, resorts to alcohol and sex for comfort.

Though it may seem funny, it’s also a mood-killer story. Stories about sexual harassment never make good party stories. These kind of stories are too shameful, too private and too intimate and the shame is always directed towards the one who is acted against. This is why these destructive patterns are being reproduced, decade after decade, because the consequence of shame is silence. Those who should be held accountable are seldom that. They never really leave their position of power and influence.

It is difficult for me to understand the viewpoint of the anonymous teacher. It looks like you are afraid of loosing privileges that you feel entitled to. But my body is not one of your privileges. You have your salary, not my body.

In a conversation with you I will always be in a weaker position. You have established yourself as an artist. You have the privilege of working with people. You have access to media. You have a stable income. You have power, influence and finances. I have none of that.

You should know that it is not the first time I try to speak up, but apparently I am speaking to an ear that is deaf to my voice.

I am curious to understand you – at the same time I don’t want to continue the conversation on your terms. Because if you say I am wrong and I say I am not, you are the one winning, and I am back again in the position where I am defending my right to keep my clothes on, and I don’t want to be there.

There is a method to find a solution to these problems and the method is of course to talk. To continue the conversation, to talk in a community, to be curious on how language works and on whose premises it works.

To listen, to give space, to go into the definitions of the terms, to ask and ask for help and to be able let go of old privileges. The discourse of the conversation needs to be negotiated and you need to trust me when I say that I am experiencing these things, that they aren’t pleasant and that the problem can’t be limited to me as a single person.

It is a difficult topic to talk about, but we do, all of us, need to continue the conversation. You are apparently not satisfied with the current situation and surely, neither am I. I need more nuances. I need to know I am not alone in recognising these problems. I need perspective and I need to be corrected when I have misunderstood things. I need to understand, just a little bit, what your opinions originate from. Like you, I also need the help from others.

I need the help from people who are more educated and more verbally strong than me since I also have blind spots and I often freeze or don’t know how to respond to statements I find unjust. If it gets too uncomfortable and if my words get stuck in my throat and my body starts to shake, I have prepared a small comfort. Something we can share. I have made sweets to go down with the sour facts. Sweets to help with the bitter numbers. So let’s continue the conversation and let’s continue it in a better way.

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Cover photo: Work by Anne Sofie Skjold Møller.