Make the World, 2025
Video projection with sound, 5’15 mins, 4:3 looped
Installed on wooden structure
"'Anyone can break up a showing of an enemy propaganda film by putting two or three dozen large moths in a paper bag. Take the bag to the movies with you, put it on the floor in an empty section of the theater as you go in and leave it open. The moths will fly out and climb into the projector beam, so that the film will be obscured by fluttering shadows.'
Simple Sabotage Field Manual, pp. 26-27
In 1944, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA) created the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a guide for civilians in Nazi-occupied Europe to carry out minor acts of disruption. Nellie Lindquist draws on this manual in her animated video featuring moths as unwitting saboteurs, flitting through a dark space toward a beam of light, obscuring the unseen projection. Installed like a billboard, the work extends into the gallery with illuminated lightboxes resembling propaganda tools, their ghostly glow recalling screens or displays. Nellie Lindquist explores how narrative fiction shapes our understanding of real power structures, especially in a world marked by authoritarianism and violations of international law. The manual’s childlike simplicity contrasts with today’s complex intelligence operations, yet its subtle power remains. With her exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Nellie Lindquist suggests even small, seemingly naïve actions can disrupt oppressive systems."
(from the exhibition text by Linnéa Bake)
Credit:
Direction, edit and animation design: Nellie Lindquist
Animator/CGI: Axel Lindquist
Sound design and score: Oliver Nehammer
Make the World is supported by:
Danish Arts Foundation, Beckett Foundation
Exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin. 24.10.2025–14.12.2025.