🇩🇰 New exhibition by Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsen

If in a hole, keep digging
Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsen
9.8 – 29.8 Tues-Sat 12.00-17.00

Visual journalist and designer Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsen presents her first solo exhibition in Denmark, “If in a hole, keep digging”, opening on August 9th at Officinet. The exhibition is part of Officinet’ NEW TALENTS 2026.

“If in a hole, keep digging” is the culmination of a decade of field research in the investigation on the mineral adventure in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland). Here, Havsteen-Mikkelsen has investigated the relationship between Greenland’s natural resources, the green transition, Big Tech, and Europe’s rearmament — a geopolitical race over the future production and consumption of new technologies and military dominance.

The exhibition unfolds as a total installation with physical and digital design interventions. Here, Havsteen-Mikkelsen takes a critical approach to the phenomenon of the “mineral adventure” and sheds light on the social, political, economic and environmental opportunities and consequences of raw material extraction.

She draws on film footage, interviews and customized sensor instruments that have collected data near extraction industries in the investigation of the actual conditions of mining in the region. The data and footage in the video installation were all recorded and collected during 2025–2026 by Havsteen-Mikkelsen, primarily in Greenland.

However, the exhibition also makes use of open-source data from various research institutions working with environmental changes, mineral deposits and the economic potential of extraction in the region. Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsen brings sound, image and materiality to Officinet in an investigation of the geopolitical points of contact: the mining industry’s need for investment and decision-makers’ demand for raw materials for a Europe undergoing military build-up and the green transition industries, where Greenland’s underground contains significant resources and development opportunities, in particulary for the American tech industry, thus the US presidents interest in the island.

The exhibition represents an experimental approach to design and information design as an art form by bringing current and highly relevant societal discussions to the fore. Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsen insists on the complexity of the subject and gives a voice to researchers, miners, investment companies, mineral prospectors and political decision-makers, while the audience follows the journey of an activist and ironic polar adventurer through Greenland’s mining sector.

Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsen is a research-based designer and visual journalist working in Denmark, Iceland and Greenland. Her practice investigates the social, political and environmental narratives of the Arctic through film, text, radio and data visualisation. Using investigative and design-driven methods, she explores the mechanisms behind mineral exploration, territorial claims and the collective memory.

Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsen holds a Master’s degree in GEO-Design from Design Academy Eindhoven and the Design Department at Sandberg Institute, and a Bachelor’s degree in Product Design from the Iceland Academy of the Arts. She is co-founder and producer of Radio Arctic, and works as a teacher in mapping, film editing and design research at various academies across Europe.

The exhibition is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, Knud Højgaards Fond, Beckett Fonden, Ernst B. Sund

Fonden, Konsul George Jorck og Hustru Emma Jorck’s Fond, Den Hielmstierne-Rosencroneske Stiftelse and Danmarks Nationalbanks Jubilæumsfond af 1968.

The Metal Workshop at the Danish Art Workshops has made it possible to realise the exhibition’s physical elements.

Contact designer: Gudrun Havsteen-Mikkelsengudrun_eriksen@hotmail.com

Contact DKoD: Pernille Anker
pak@dkod.dk

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