In the exhibition Heart on the Tongue, visual artists Mia Edelgart and Eva la Cour turn their gaze towards the public broadcasting of the 1970s and 1980s through a study of the work of Belgian film and TV producer Jef Cornelis (1941-2018).

The exhibition, which takes place from 9 August to 26 October at Heirloom in Copenhagen, centres around Cornelis' films and TV programmes which he produced for national Belgian television. His work challenged ideas of what the medium can and ought to be, in both form and content. During his time, TV was a public broadcasting medium which served to create a common frame of reference and unify the population – unlike today, where the individual can choose from a plethora of on-demand streaming services.

Cornelis used the television medium as a platform for his evocative, sociocultural investigations. This is evident, for instance, in his architecture programmes featuring essayistic meditations on the development of urbanism and urban spaces in the 20th century, as well as the impact on inhabitants’ lives. Another one of Cornelis’ recurring themes is the art world, and in his portraits of artists and art events he portrays a comprehensive cultural-political apparatus of capital and power.

Edelgart and la Cour feel particular kinship with Jef Cornelis’ methodological approach and for the exhibition, they have created a series of new works in conversation with Cornelis’ archive. Through interviews and staged conversations, Edelgart and la Cour highlight the collaborative nature of Cornelis’ work and explore the relationship between communication and presentation, as well as process and production. Cornelis left behind a modest paper archive that sheds light on his working methods, but his television programmes have themselves become a unique archive of cultural and art historical documentation, and his productions have since been featured at various festivals and art biennials.

The exhibition presents two new film works and an installation by the artists alongside four TV productions by Jef Cornelis. In one of the films, Edelgart and la Cour visit argos in Brussels to study Jef Cornelis’ archive. The film is not a traditional documentary about a significant cultural figure, instead reflecting on how to access the past, and who takes care of and controls access to a legacy. In another work, they explore some of Cornelis’ television techniques, testing their effectiveness in contemporary discussions on the climate crisis.

In addition to the exhibition, Edelgart and la Cour have organised four film screening events at the Danish Film Institute in Copenhagen.

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The exhibition is supported by argos centre for audiovisual arts, the Augustinus Foundation and the Ny Carlsberg Foundation and has been created in collaboration with the research centres Center for Practice-based Art Studies (PASS) and Art as Forum at the University of Copenhagen, with which the artists are associated. The production of new works is supported by the two centres and the Danish Arts Foundation.