Folding nations

 

Solo exhibition

 

Gallery CC

Malmø Sweden

 

05.09.25 – 05.10.25

 

In the spaces of Galleri CC, the world unfolds in fragile porcelain.

 

In Anne Langgaard’s total installation Folding Nations, something as universal and seemingly innocent as the paper plane is transformed into a charged symbol of national identity, geopolitics, and a vulnerable world order.

 

The work consists of 254 hand-folded planes in A4 size, crafted in paper-thin porcelain and painted with the national flags of all recognized states and dependent territories listed in ISO 3166-1. Each plane represents a nation, yet together they form a fragmented landscape where order and structure have been replaced by chaos and gravity – a quiet monument to the state of nations: their weight, their unrest, their change.

 

The planes rest in piles on the floor, on windowsills, and along staircases, as if they had crashed. Their placement transforms the installation into a kind of ruin field – a cartography of fragility, where it becomes impossible to move without stepping on history. On the floor, chalk lines trace the world’s current conflict zones, slowly fading or shifting as the exhibition progresses. They overlap, cross, and cancel each other out – visual testaments to the fact that borders are never natural, but always negotiated, and often fought over.

 

Folding Nations operates in the tension between the poetic and the political, between the intimate and the global. It lets the paper plane carry a heavy narrative of identity, territory, and the global unrest that confronts us in daily life. Where the paper plane is often associated with movement and freedom, these are bound to the ground, weighed down by their own material – in a world that has lost its lightness. The installation reminds us that national identity, belonging, and sovereignty are not fixed values, but fragile constructions within a complex and often conflict-ridden reality – pointing to the paradox of the nation-state as both a framework for community and a source of exclusion.

 

Folding Nations is an invitation to reflection – a quiet gesture with profound resonance. A reminder that what we once believed to be solid can crumble, and that fragility often carries the deepest meaning.

 

The exhibition has been made possible with support from the Danish Arts Foundation, Svensk-danska Kulturfonden and Billedhuggeren, professor Gottfred Eickhoff och hans hustru, maleren Gerda Eickhoffs Fond.