MAPS X THE ARTIST: Silas Inoue

What does creating a sculpture for Copenhagen’s City Hall Square have in common with hunting and butchering a deer?

On 22 October, visual artist Silas Inoue sets the agenda for our MAPS x THE ARTIST – an artist-led live format where the artist takes the lead and neither the audience nor MAPS knows exactly what surprises the evening might bring.

Silas Inoue has invited the Plum brothers; visual artist, writer and horse trainer Carl Plum, and landscape architect and researcher Niels Plum – to join him for an evening about art, hunting, ecology, food, microbiomes, and the ways in which we as humans leave our mark on the world.

There is no fixed script. Instead, there will be fermented artist snacks, special drinks, conversation and room for unexpected detours.

Giant woodlice and the human microbiome
The evening takes its starting point in two of Silas Inoue’s current sculptures at Copenhagen’s City Hall Square: a giant curled-up woodlouse made of aluminium and a large seed made of mahogany. The works were created in connection with the exhibition Cosmos in Compost (Bokashi) at Politikens Forhal.

Together with the audience, Silas, Carl and Niels explore what connects the process of creating a sculpture for public space with hunting and butchering a deer.

What does it mean to create, build, grow and process something ourselves? And how can we make our own mark on life at a time of ecological crisis and in a society based on ever-increasing production and consumption?

Silas Inoue will also talk about the process behind the sculptures, his fascination with compost, and the stories about nature, culture and consumption hidden in what we eat. Along the way, the conversation moves from food systems and hunting to fermentation and the human microbiome.

And, of course, some of it is there to be tasted!

The evening will include honey mead, mirabelle slivovitz, fermented mare’s milk, dried fallow deer biltong and lacto-fermented vegetables.

Practical information
Date: 22 October 2026
Time: 6.30–8 pm
Venue: MAPS, Nørregade 29, 4600 Køge

Price:
DKK 110 – standard ticket
DKK 50 – under 30s and annual pass holders

The ticket price includes admission to MAPS’ current exhibitions. So come a little early and explore our exhibitions before the talk.

With thanks to Politikens Forhal and Ida Schyum, Head of Exhibitions at Politikens Forhal.

Edited and organised by Karina Lykkesborg.

Silas Inoue
Left: Cosmos in Compost, 2026, mahogany, bronze, concrete, compost, 118x195x195cm.
Right: Cosmos in Compost, 2026, aluminium, concrete, compost, 115x170x115cm.
Courtesy of the artist. Photo: David Stjernholm/@david_stjernholm. 

SILAS INOUE AT MAPS
MAPS has acquired two works by Silas Inoue: Infrastructure (2020) and Disturbed and Disturbing (2025). The works are on view at the museum in Køge.
The acquisition was supported by the 15. Juni Fonden as part of its UNG KUNST initiative, which supports talent development and career opportunities for young visual artists in Denmark.

ABOUT MAPS x THE ARTIST
MAPS x THE ARTIST is MAPS’ artist-led live format, where the artist sets the agenda and we, as organisers, are just as likely to be surprised by what happens during the evening as the audience.
Taking one of the artist’s own works in public space as a starting point, the evening might develop into a conversation, performance, reading, action, or something entirely different.
There is no fixed format. Each edition takes its own form, and as an audience member, you never quite know what to expect.
MAPS x THE ARTIST takes place twice a year at MAPS – Museum of Art in Public Space in Køge. The first artist to take part in the format was visual artist Uffe Isolotto, who took his work Horizontal Cathedral as a starting point.

Editor and organiser: Karina Lykkesborg

ABOUT SILAS INOUE
Silas Inoue is a Danish-Japanese visual artist working with sculpture, installation, drawing and living organisms. His works bring together themes including nature, ecology, consumption, technology and economics, often through materials and forms of life that we do not normally associate with art.
He has exhibited internationally at venues including Ulterior Gallery in New York, Sonje Art Center in Seoul and CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, as well as in Denmark at institutions including Horsens Kunstmuseum and Copenhagen Contemporary. In 2027, he will open a solo exhibition at Bornholms Kunstmuseum.

ABOUT CARL PLUM
Carl Plum (b. 1989) is a visual artist, writer and horse trainer who graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2020. In recent years, he has worked as a horse trainer and professional hunter in Greenland and the United States, among other places.
In 2026, he published the book Menneskenes tid with Forlaget Gladiator – a personal and exploratory book about family, loss, travel, capitalism and life between Denmark, Greenland, the United States and the West Bank, among other subjects.
In his artistic practice, he often explores how large and abstract forces such as nature, economics and capitalism become tangible in our everyday lives – from a fox moving through Copenhagen to the things we eat, produce and surround ourselves with.

ABOUT NIELS PLUM
Niels Plum is a landscape architect, researcher, writer and environmental communicator with an interdisciplinary background in architecture, geography, ecology and food systems.
His work combines research with practical experience in areas including construction, agriculture, land management and food production. He is particularly interested in how ecological restoration, rewilding, land use and food systems can be brought together in new ways of living with and using the landscape.