You and Joy

In ‘You and Joy’ (2025), two grandmothers talk on the phone for the first time in a century. The retired actress Joy and her medium You together sew a stitch in time, revealing the mystery and beauty of communication. In this film on loving and listening, sprung from the deep need of invoking a grandmother, we see a representation of the in-betweenness of connection.Through telepathy and consciousness-across-bodies, You and Joy explore the metaphysical possibilities of contact and connection, unfolding a metafiction of sensations.

Working across drawing, time-based media and writing, the work of Frederikke Jul Vedelsby examines access to other states of consciousness. In her new video work “You and Joy” (2025), Vedelsby returns to film long-time collaborator Alba S. Enström and retired Greek actress Eleni. Linked solely by this mutual connection with the artist, Alba (You) and Eleni (Joy) step into a spontaneous role play, engaging in the co-creation of an unscripted kinship. By tracing situations, dialogues and emotional states arising from experiences of connection with other people, Vedelsby seeks to overcome the idea of a predetermined model of sociability, formats which too often come to define the trajectory of our social and affective engagement.

Frederikke Jul Vedelsby (b. 1990, in Copenhagen, DK) lives and works in Copenhagen. Vedelsby graduated with an MFA from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden (2020), studied at Maumaus Independent Study Programme, Portugal (2021), and specialized in critical writing at Biskops Arnö, Sweden (2022). Her work has been exhibited at SHOWER (Seoul, KR), Skaftfell (Seyðisfjörður, IS), Kunsthal Kongegaarden (Kørsor, DK), Malmö Konsthall (Malmö, SE) , Den Frie Udstillingsbygning (Copenhagen, DK), Heima (Seyðisfjörður, IS) and at The Beat Museum (San Francisco, US) among others.