What if today was your birthday? And everyone else’s too?
Happy Unbirthday! is a joyful celebration where we all join the party – wearing birthday hats, singing Happy Birthday, sharing our wishes, and taking turns smashing a giant piñata. No one’s the center of attention – and somehow, everyone is.
At the heart of this playful performance by American artist Victoria is a handmade piñata, created from recycled materials and filled with messages from previous wNorkshops: memories, dreams, and notes waiting to be passed on. Crack it open and take a message with you – a birthday gift from a stranger.
Victoria created Happy Unbirthday! in the wake of personal grief and rising anxiety around aging and mortality. Birthdays mark time – moments to pause, reflect, wish, and gather. In Mexican culture, the piñata is central to these rituals, fostering communal participation and emotional release. By bridging Mexican, American, and Danish traditions, the work becomes a space for cultural exchange, celebration, and (queer) joy.
Victoria is an identity-based artist working across video, performance, sound, sculpture, and installation. Through video and performance, Victoria explores their Queer, non-binary identity by experimenting with makeup, costumes, and wigs to reimagine the self and invent new ways of being.
Victoria is an artist-in-residence as part of Warehouse9, The Museum of Human Achievement and
Unlisted Projects international residency exchange initiative called CopenhAustin.
Jasmin has a master’s degree in English and cultural communications from the University of Copenhagen and has worked with several fields within the cultural sphere. She has worked with executing and communicating films, festivals, art fairs, and literature, and has now embarked upon queer performance art at Warehouse9.
Emma (they/she) has been a core member since 2012 and a leading effort in driving organisational development. They have helped shape WH9’s artistic profile, initiated national and international collaborations and consolidated WH9 through fundraising strategies, and insisting on production methods centering care and accessiblility.
In addition, Emma works as an independent curator, e.g. through the curatorial duo osborn&møller, where they have acted as guest curator at the Wellcome Collection (UK) and curated part of City of Women’s 25 year anniversary festival in 2019 (SL). Emma has experience as a freelance producer in the UK, where they worked with artists such as Poppy Jackson, Manuel Vason and SPILL Festival. Emma holds a MA in Theater and Performance from Queen Mary, University of London and a BA (Hons) in Drama, Applied Theatre & Education from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
Jørgen Callesen (They/He) is co-founder and co-director of Warehouse9.
For the past 17 years, they have been an integral part of developing Warehouse9 to become a leading organisation for cross-aesthetic queer art, including international festivals and socially engaged projects. He holds a Ph.D. in information & media science from Aarhus University (2005) and has an artistic practice with the performance figure “miss fish”. They have presented solo work in Denmark and internationally since 2002 and work in collaboration with numerous queer artists as well as in lager scale productions.
