CLAUDIA COMTE ^CH

Huge tree trunks make up a large sculpture for sitting, for meeting new friends and for overlooking the festival.

At this year’s Roskilde Festival, the letters ME WE meet the festival-goers in the hills near Dream City in Camping East. Made out of 16 huge tree trunks, the large-scale sculpture by Swiss artist Claudia Comte blends into the landscape surrounding the festival grounds. Spelling out the title of the work, ME WE, it creates a place for sitting, meeting new friends and overlooking the camping area within the festival.

By countering the familiar phrase ‘us and them’, which creates a feeling of separation amongst groups, ME WE, on the contrary, expresses a sense of community and connection. Community is a key term at Roskilde Festival. Since its installation at the 2019 festival, Claudia Comte’s sculpture offers the festival-goers the opportunity to establish exactly that.

Claudia Comte (b. 1983 in Grancy, Switzerland) is based in the countryside outside of Basel, Switzerland. The artist has recently presented her work in solo exhibitions at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2021); Kunstraum Dornbirn, Dornbirn (2020); Castello di Rivoli - Museo D´Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli (2019); Copenhagen Contemporary, Copenhagen (2019); Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, USA (2018); Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern (2017); Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2014); amongst many others. The artist participated in international group exhibitions such as Desert X, AlUla, Saudi Arabia (2022); the 58th October Salon – Belgrade Biennale, Belgrade, Serbia (2021) and many more. Comte’s works are part of renowned collections such as those of the Baltimore Museum, Baltimore; Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich; or the MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, New York.