Chocolate coins and camels, flowers and bees. In Benedikte Bjerre’s universe, nothing is quite what it seems. Here, capital grows like crops in a peculiar landscape where chickens move freely between social critique and fairy-tale logic.

Through sculpture and photography, Bjerre works with a conceptual and humorous visual language. Growth, value and fertility are recurring themes that emerge through motifs and symbols. From Disneyfied animals and ventilation systems to daisy flowers, Bjerre sketches a portrait of capitalist food chains, prompting questions such as: Did the chicken really come before the egg? And which straw is the one that breaks the camel’s back?

Bjerre’s works explore the structures of society and economic systems. The title CAPITAL is deliberately ambiguous, referring both to money and to the capital city. Questions of resources, development and power relations are central to Bjerre’s artistic practice.

In the work Starry Night, discount bread is transformed into bronze, while the title work CAPITAL plays with attraction and value: a large quantity of gold-wrapped chocolate coins glitters in the sunlight. Over just a few years, the price of chocolate has risen by more than 20 percent in a market increasingly affected by climate change. Yet the most immediate question remains: Are you allowed to taste it?

Bjerre does not only question the individual motif. She plays with the symbolic value of objects, challenging their meaning and status.

Benedikte Bjerre studied in both Germany and Denmark and has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally.