Theodor Nymark

Danish Institute in Rome
2025

During my month-long residency in May 2025 at the Danish Institute in Rome, I have been interested in investigating, through writing, photography, video, sculpture and gestural arrangements installed in and around the institute by Kay Fisker, how Arte Povera meets ecological and post-human theory, and how questions of ephemerality, authorship, economic instability and cultural precarity thread through both. I read the city itself as a living archive: a palimpsest where myth, ruin, and behavioural patterns overlap. Following Aldo Rossi’s idea of urban artefacts, façades, arcades, and demolition scars become active agents that keep identity in motion, mediating between innovation and authenticity.

Through the prism of Pier Paolo Calzolari’s work La Casa Ideale (1968), I seek to develop the notion of an “ecological object”: a sort of materialised spherical mirror that reflects the spiritual, cultural, political, and environmental strata of its surroundings. Field trips to industrial zones and heritage sites—along with conversations with important figures such as curator and L’Attico founder Fabio Sargentini—test this concept against Arte Povera’s material poetics and current debates on agency, materiality, and place. Whether I point the focus towards the ornamental flourish of a façade or the blunt violence of demolition, I am interested in showcasing how both infrastructure and narrative might script the conditions of life in the city.   

Chapel (after Calzolari) 2025
Foam board, reflective vinyl, textured vinyl, lemon-scented mosquito-repellent candles.
 Location: The living room

“lucciola” 2025
1-channel Iphone video of a firefly on the terrace, inverted.
r/t 01:12 no sound
Location: The Archeological laboratory

Satyrus Bar, Villa Borghese (2025)
Inkjet on coloured paper

Academia di Dinamarca (2025)
Inkjet on coloured paper

Untitled (2025)
Algae pigment on cotton paper and transparent colour foil

Colosseu (2025)
Photograph edited with artificial intelligence, inkjet on coloured paper

Untitled (Survivor) (2025)
Plastic bag, wildflowers, LED light

Location: The Archeological Labratory

Untitled (after Aldo Rossi) (2025)
Wooden architectural model of the Danish Academy in Rome by Kay Fisker, ancient Roman archaeological fragments, LED light chain
Location: The Archeological Labratory

Untitled (resurrectionaries) 1–5 (2025)
Biodegradable bag, wildflowers, LED light
Location: The Basement