An Exhibition by Artist Eli Trier- Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello

Name: An Exhibition by Artist Eli Trier- Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello
Start: 2026-01-23T19:00:00+01:00
Location: Birkegade 7, 2200

Schedule

Fri, 23 Jan, 2026 at 07:00 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Birkegade 7, 2200 | Copenhagen , SK

MDS Studio Gallery presents
Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello
A solo exhibition by Eli Trier (Zuzu)
Opening Night: Friday, January 23rd at 19:00
MDS Gallery, Birkegade 7, Copenhagen N
Free & Open to All
Public Invitation
MDS Studio Gallery is honoured to present Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello, a powerful and necessary exhibition by artist and creator Eli Trier (aka Zuzu), founder of Zuzu’s Haus of Cats.
Join us on Friday, January 23rd at 7pm for an evening that promises to be provocative, vulnerable, and socially urgent. This is a free, open event and one we believe will spark conversations that matter.
Curatorial Exhibition Description
As curator of MDS Studio Gallery, I am profoundly proud to present Eli Trier’s newest body of work - a collection that confronts one of the most widespread, yet least openly acknowledged realities of women’s lives: the casual, daily forms of sexual aggression embedded in language, culture, and the way women are spoken to before they are even greeted as human beings.
Things Men Have Said To Me Instead Of Hello takes actual openers Eli received on dating apps - messages so disturbing, invasive, graphic, or entitled that they almost defy belief and blows them up to a scale that no longer allows us to look away. Rendered in symbolically feminine mixed media such as lace, pearls, vintage jewellery, and safety pins, these works force us to sit with the bizarre contradiction that something so “normalised” can also be so profoundly violent.
What makes this exhibition so important is not merely the content of the messages, but the cultural conditioning that makes them feel commonplace. Women who hear about this work instantly understand it. They recognise the tone and the entitlement and they often respond with their own stories, told with the weary familiarity of someone who has lived with this dynamic her entire life. Men, however, often react with shock, disbelief, or nervous humour, a divide that says far more about our social structures than we are often ready to admit.
Eli states, this exhibition is not about demonising men or creating a simplistic binary of perpetrators and victims. Eli’s intention, and mine as curator, is to invite viewers into a conversation about the patriarchal systems we have all inherited and internalise in one way or another. The work asks us to consider rape culture, the male gaze, socialised gender behaviour, beauty standards, and the normalisation of harassment but more than anything, it asks us to stop accepting the unacceptable simply because we’ve been conditioned to.
By dragging these “open secrets” into the light, Eli challenges us to finally see them for what they are.
This is an exhibition about recognition. About refusing to shrug off what has been minimised for far too long.
I welcome you to step into this space with openness, curiosity, and courage.
This work is raw, and honest, and desperately needed and I am deeply honoured to present it at MDS Studio Gallery.
— Melanie D. Smith
Curator, MDS Studio Gallery