Inspired by the many pieces of old gum stuck on the ground at the busterminal in Randers, I produced a 65 meter long art installation in collaboration with students from the art line at FGU Østjylland in Randers. The installation was predominantly created out of unwanted and discarded materials, many sourced from the Randers disposal and recycling facility. Other materials were obtained from Remida in Randers, local businesses as well as local residents. The installation was commissioned by REN Randers/Randers Kommune and up for the duration of Randers Festuge. An opening reception took place on Friday, August 12 from 3-4pm, which included speeches, singing, ribbon cutting, chewing gum cakes and playback of the accompanying audio piece. This video was created by TV2 Østjylland with footage from the opening reception.

I developed this community singalong performance for Water Music on a Beach featuring Boulevard Dreamers, honoring 6018 North and its fearless founder Tricia Van Eck. Presented by 6018 North the show took place Saturday, June 25 from 4-7 PM at Lane Beach, 5915 N Sheridan Rd. This event connected two performance series – Water Music on the Beach and Boulevard Dreamers – to create a community-focused variety show that celebrates Chicago’s location on Lake Michigan and features a panoply of talent from Edgewater, Rogers Park, Uptown, and beyond. Unfortunately I was unable to perform the singalong myself, as I was in Denmark. However, Matt Stevenson and Tricia Van Eck took on the challenge on my behalf, as you can experience in this video by Ellie Hall documenting the performance. Boulevard Dreamers is an ongoing collaborative project by artists Lise Haller Baggesen and Kirsten Leenaars.

This site-specific multimedia installation transformed the Old Kirke Museum into an artificial forest site reminiscing the past as well as contemplating the present and future. Inspired by local history and Danish immigration experience of the 19th and 20th centuries, the exhibition addresses (de)forestation and celebrates people coming together to make a difference. All the trees used in this exhibtion, were unwanted trees, sourced through social media or garbagepicked on the curb predominantly in the West Chicagoland area. Trees were stripped of defunct lightstrands by groups of volunteers, repaired when needed and brought to MI by the artist. At the end of the exhibition, all trees were donated to local chairities as well as individuals in the Manistee and sourouding area.

The West Shore Community College Humankind series hosted the exhibition at the Old Kirke Museum in Manistee, Michigan. The exhibition opened Saturday, Feb. 19 and ran through Friday, April 22 at the historic Danish Lutheran Church located at 300 Walnut Street in Manistee. WSCC is very thankful to the Old Kirke Museum leadership for this collaboration.

“Anni Holm’s work is community oriented. As an immigrant from Denmark, she deeply appreciates the value of community for moving beyond challenging experiences many immigrants face” said WSCC’s Professor of Art and Curator, Eden Ünlüata-Foley. “In her work, Anni brings people together where participants can exchange stories, share perspectives, and seek common threads. Anni Holm has been working with past WSCC president, Dr. William Anderson, in researching, meeting local community members, and visiting significant sites tied to the Danish immigrant experience.”

Photography by Eden Ünlüata-Foley and Lucas Quienteros

"I was at first a bit hesitant about getting the COVID vaccine, in part because I was worried about the effects it would have on my body. However, after a lot of personal research and feedback from friends and family members who had already gotten it, I became confident in my choice of getting it myself. I reflected on this journey, as I painted the vaccination letters, incorporating many different layers and colors of paint. In the end I settled on a somewhat festive look to celebrate the event." Anni Holm

I was invited by the Mexican Cultural Center of DuPage, to deocrate one set of the four sculptural letter formations spelling out various variations of the word vaccination in English and Spanish. For this purpose I utilized leftover acrylic paint from another project.

Signals & Codes, was a group show featuring Anni Holm, Austin McCann, John Rakow, and Mandy Rakow. The exhibition was based on a pedagogical collaboration through the non-profit Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE), initially aimed at working parents, seeking experimental ways to bring artistic practice into daily life. Signals & Codes featured original flags and texts from its included artists.

The artworks in Signals & Codes played with expectations. While flags are generally used to communicate clearly, objectively, and broadly to a target audience, the flags in this exhibition were subjective, experimental propositions. Accompanying texts from each artist offered poetic & performative strategies for ‘activating’ the flags, through performance, participation, and poetics. Artists also touched on diverse concerns, from gender trouble to handicraft and public speech. Together, the exhibition challenges certain false divisions, such as public/private, individual/collective, and professional/amateur.

My contribution consisted of a Danish flag, knitted out of reporposed red and white yarn, and a poem. During the opening reception, I activited the flag, following the prompts of the poem, read outloud by a fellow Dane.

Signals & Codes was part of the 2021 Terrain Biennial international public art festival, hosted from October 2-November 15, 2021.

While statistics surrounding the contribution of lawns and lawn care to climate change vary, commonly quoted EPA data show that in mowing, Americans use 800 million gallons of gasoline and spill another 17 million gallons. Burning all that gas releases 16 billion tons of CO2 or more into the atmosphere. Although this equipment is often overlooked as a significant source of pollution, lawn equipment poses a clear environmental hazard, especially given how large the lawn care industry remains in America. When I was invited to donate a piece of art, that could serve as a lawn ornament, to the 2021Terrain Biennial international public art festival fundraiser, it had to be a lawn mover. I repurposed a broken toy law mover by having it spraypainted a bright red. Not only red is one of the most visible colors in the color spectrum. Its ability to instantly grab people's attention is the reason why it's often used to warn people of impending danger. Photos by Tom Burtonwood.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, I moved to Denmark, after having spent the past 21 years of my life in the USA. I left a lot of things that I love behind, but I was hopeful, that I was leaving for something better. Like many of my friends, I felt as if I had been stuck in a limbo waiting, although, not sure exactly what I was waiting for. After moving to Denmark the waiting continued. Waiting for call backs from the municipality, waiting in line at the store, waiting for job applications to bear fruit etc.

In April 2021, I was fortunate to finally get a call back and I was hired as a COVID-19 selftest supervisor at Dania Academy in Randers. Although, the waiting continued, (for students and for staff to show up, for test results and health apps to load), I procured a pile of scrap paper and a box of markers and began to doodle mindlessly. While, I was still waiting, the doodling provided me a sense of purpose and release. I soon started to experience the mindless doodling as a mindful meditation exercise, that provided me with some much need healing from the sense of loss many of us have experienced dealing with the uncertainty of COVID-19.

The artworks on display were all color copies of the original drawings I produced while manning the front desk. Each piece started out as a continued line doodle. Thereafter I carefully filled in the spaces created between the lines, using a color scheme of two to four colors reflecting my state of mind. While I attempted to limit the same colors to only touch at points, a few mishaps have snuck in a couple of the pieces. In addition to the work on display, I created a colorless “takeaway" for anyone, who wished to engage with the work by coloring in their own version.

This video performance was careted in collaboration with Rose Camastro Pritchett, Chicago and Claudia Bucher, Switzerland for Chicago Artists Platform for the Platforms Independent Artfair in Athens, Greece in 2021. The collaboration was initiated by Rose, but created in collaboration, each of us reflecting on our life circumstances midst a pandemic. At the time of this collaboration, Rose performed her piece in Evanston, Claudia performed her's in Switzerland and I performed mine in Denmark.

I created this window installation, rusing and adding to elements from my "Glamor & Glitter" as well as repurposing other found and discarded materials. The piece was show at 103 W. Washington Street in West Chicago, during the month of Februrary and March 2020. At the time of installation, I really just wanted to encourage people to get through the long and cold (Chicago) winter. Little did I know, that the world would shut down due to COVID one and half month into the installation. Leaving us all isolated, overwhelmeded and unsure of the future.

I created this silver fringe curtain for the Discardables exhibition at Aurora Public Arts in Aurora, Illinois. Initailly I had wanted to make the piece, to be installed against a wall, so it could act as a bacdrop. However, due to limited wallspace, I ended up making a freehanging curtain instead, through which one could chose to enter into and exit out of the exhbition space. Creating a sensation of entering into the spotlight or out of it and into a back hallway. Although, silver fringe curtains can be relatively cheaply obtained via Oriental Trading or car dealer suppliers, I spent numerous hours making this one out of disposed detectable tape cut offs, obtained from a factory in West Chicago, Illinois, where I live. This exhibition was organized and curated by Jen Evans.

My contribution to the Butterfly Effect, West Chicago Cultural Arts Commission 201's community project.

Poem reads:
I am often thought of
as this beautiful
yet very fragile creature
when in reality
I should be accredited for
my incredible endurance
and my enouromous impact
on the global economy

Blue and silver fringe curtain created out of discarded detectable tape and bailing twine for The Poor Connection, which took place at the Four Boxes at Krabbesholm Højskole, Skive, Denmark in October 2017. Derived from the Glamorous & Worthy installation at the Poor Farm the year before, I set out to create a new curtain, with a direct connection to Krabbesholm. Having been a student at the boarding school myself twenty years earlier, this piece very much so, reflected my personal experience. Having grown up on a farm in the country, Krabbesholm became to me this bright and brave new world, where I was able to dream and grow. It was here, I confirmed, that I was indeed to become an artist and put that old farming life behind me. However, in retrospect, having grown up on a farm has had a profround inpact on both my creative career as well as my interest in reusing materials. Hence the use of discarded baling twine, collected by my cousin, became an essential material for me to incorporate in the curtain. This exhibtion was organized and curated by Lise Haller Baggesen and Yvette Brackman.

“Assimilātus Mōbilis” is a permanent installation made up of 200+ museum-decommissioned Danish flag ribbons, previously worn by members of the Danish Brotherhood. The piece is intended to resemble “Stars and Stripes” on one side, while the other side will be composed of the multitude of Danish flag ribbons. However, installed as a mobile, time and airflow will allow for an ongoing transformation, granting elements of “Stars and Stripes” and the Danish flag ribbons to be interspersed. “Assimilātus Mōbilis” was created in collaboration with the Danish American community in Elk Horn, Iowa and beyond during the late summer of 2017.

I developed this community singalong performance for the Pegasus & Mermaids Opening: Boulevard Dreamers, honoring the Poetry Foundation. Presented at the Poetry Foundation on September 23, 2016 . Boulevard Dreamers is an ongoing collaborative project by artists Lise Haller Baggesen and Kirsten Leenaars.

For the Poor & Needy exhibition at Poor Farm, WI, I installed a silver fringe curtain in the mold infested basement. It was my intention to create a space in which one could feel glamorous and worthy, like a celebrity on a red carpet surrounded by glitter. I was interested in how wealth is associated with glitter, glamour and bling - and how surrounding yourself with either possibly can (or won’t at all) change the way you feel about your current situation. Although, silver fringe curtains can be relatively cheaply obtained via Oriental Trading or car dealer suppliers, I spent numerous hours making this one out of garbaged detectable tape cut offs, obtained from a factory in West Chicago, IL, where I live.

This work was an extension of a former project at George Washington High School, in the factory dominated Hegewisch neighborhood of Chicago. Here I worked with students to reimagine part of the lunch room. Gifted an unlimited supply of foil tape cut offs, we set out to bring more light into the room. We ended up with a handmade glitter wall, that not only brought light, but also provided the students with a “stage” on which they can envision themselves in a new light.

"Sprogtæpper" (language rugs) project was initially created during a 5 week residency in Sigrids Stue in Gellerupparken, Aarhus, Denmark during September & October 2015. Inspired by my personal experience of raising a bilingual child in America and related research, I sought out multilingual people in the most cultural diverse neighborhood in Aarhus. Together we discussed language, identity, cultural heritage & pride. In addition everyone identified the colors they each felt best represented the languages they spoke. The language rugs were first braided and then sewn into circles, using repurposed and discarded fabrics from the local thrift store and tailor. The final 49 rugs were all displayed together on the floor in Sigrids Stue (Sigrid's Livingroom) creating one large colorful rug celebrating multilingualism.

Holding hands is typically defined as an act of physical intimacy involving two or more people. Depending on your age, gender and heritage, the gesture itself can be a symbol of affection, control and respect. From the mother and child to the husband and wife and from children playing a game to protestors forming a human wall, we typical reach out for each other’s hands to show that we are “in this - together”. However, within this very act of reaching out to hold a hand lays also the possibility for something new and exciting to happen. Inspired by the formation of relationships and building of new networks, “In this - together” seeks to symbolize and depict a moment loaded with excitement for what’s next. This of cause includes the endless possibilities for love, trust, support, security, stability and togetherness that exist in our community.

During the fall of 2014, I had the opportunity and honor to collaborate with the people of West Chicago to photograph the hands that represent this community. All the hands where then cut out digitally and layered to create this mural. Close to 950 people have had a hand in this piece, so to speak. To learn more about this project and see a full list of everyone involved, please visit the City of West Chicago’s website.

This project could not have been realized without the help from the following community partners: WeGo Together for Kids, United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, City of West Chicago Cultural Arts Commission, City Museum and Historical Preservation Commission, and DuPage Children's Museum, who contributed funding, help with logistics and moral support. MY TEAM of dedicated volunteers: Mario Contreras and Diana Gabriel in Elgin, Angie Evans in Lisle, Nerissa Kuebrich in Chicago, Chris Lucero in Aurora, Brittany Nickels in DeKalb, Ali Mehdi Zaidi in London, Sarah Baranski, Sara Phalen and especially David Toney here in West Chicago. My mom, who came here all the way from Denmark to help watch my son so I could work on the project and my husband Tony Abasolo for creating this video for me.