Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen
ARTIST / FILMMAKER

Ideal Lad

(2005)

Pigment print on Tirage Baryté (Ed. of 5)

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This is a portrait of Ali, an Indian embroiderer I met in Sharjah in 2005. He embroidered the works Change Your Life Here / Nobody Any Income for me, and this photograph was taken in his workshop.

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I positioned him facing me, with the shopfront behind him. By drawing the curtain slightly across the window, the beauty salon sign across the street — “Ideal Ladies Salon” — was reduced to “Ideal Lad.” The title came from that moment.

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For me, Ali is an ideal lad. He has travelled thousands of kilometres from India to work in the UAE and send money home to his family.

This encounter later became one of the starting points for my video installation Rendez-vous (2009).

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