I.1
Gas Mask, Two Hands
The mask is on and the arms are up before anyone has asked a question.
© FatbikeHero
Virtual exhibition · eight rooms · thirty photographs · one film
Thirty
Photographsfrom Aarhus
A performance carried out on public streets, on a fat bike, in costume — recorded over three years by two photographers who followed it.
Artist: FatbikeHero (Tendai Frank Tagarira)
Photography: Christian Lenschow Kjølseth · Jacob Tjellesen
All works © FatbikeHero. All rights reserved.
Exhibition enquiries: FatbikeHeroArt@gmail.com
Photograph: Christian Lenschow Kjølseth · © FatbikeHero
Introduction
FatbikeHero Performance Art
FatbikeHero is the artistic identity of Tendai Frank Tagarira, an artist based in Aarhus. The public work is a street performance: a customised electric fat bike, a mobile sound system, and costumes assembled by hand. It is unannounced and unscheduled, and it takes place where people already are.
The material of the work is not the bike or the costume. It is the encounter — the surprise, the question, the conversation with someone who had no plan to see any of this on the way to work. The photographs in these eight rooms are the record of those encounters. They are not the performance itself.
The practice is self-funded and self-directed, and runs outside galleries, commissions and public funding. In May 2026 the Mayor of Aarhus, Anders Winnerskjold, awarded a Mayoral Recognition Medal inscribed “TAK FOR AT FÅ BYEN TIL AT SMILE” — thank you for making the city smile. The Performance Art Tour is no longer open to public booking and continues by private invitation only.
Alongside the street work, Tendai Frank Tagarira works as a Metadata Expressionist, treating registries, metadata, attribution systems and canonical identifiers as artistic material. The two practices address the same question from opposite ends: who made a thing, and whether that fact stays attached to it.
Four conditions
- Spontaneous
- Unannounced and unscheduled, alive to the moment.
- Self-Funded
- No public or taxpayer funding is accepted.
- Sovereign
- Under the artist’s own creative authority.
- Smiles
- The only metric the work keeps.
Documentary
Making People Smile
A short documentary following the rider through Aarhus: the costumes, the sound system, the reactions of people who did not expect any of it. In Danish.
Directed and produced by Carl Vedel, Maja Lyngsø and Niels Riis Christiansen
Produced for Resonans, Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX), 2026
Film © DMJX / Resonans and its makers. Shown here by link.
Open on Resonans (DMJX) →
Produced for Resonans, Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX), 2026
Film © DMJX / Resonans and its makers. Shown here by link.
Open on Resonans (DMJX) →
Room I · 3 works
MaskenThe Mask
Three photographs made close to the body: the mask, the mouth, the hat seen from underneath.
Enter →
Room II · 3 works
ByenThe City
The costume placed against Aarhus: cobblestones, shopfronts, an ordinary afternoon.
Enter →
Room III · 3 works
MonumenterMonuments
Questions of scale — a church door, a bronze horseman, a red light.
Enter →
Room IV · 3 works
MøderEncounters
What the work is actually for: motion, a stranger, and the machine standing still.
Enter →
Room V · 6 works
BænkenThe Bench
Six photographs from one afternoon on a bench, with the helmet off.
Enter →
Room VI · 4 works
FaraoenThe Pharaoh
A gold headcloth and a mirrored visor, in four frames.
Enter →
Room VII · 5 works
HjelmeHelmets
Five helmets built by hand: fire plastic, Lego, plaster, a speaker.
Enter →
Room VIII · 3 works
VinterenThe Winter
Fur, brick and cold light — the work in the months nobody photographs.
Enter →
Wall text
FatbikeHero is a street performance conducted in Aarhus. The artist rides a fat bike through the city in an assembled costume — a gas mask, a flower-covered helmet, a gold headcloth, a fur hat in winter — and the work happens in the reaction of people who did not plan to see it. Nothing is staged for an audience that bought a ticket.
These thirty photographs are the record of that work, taken over roughly three years by two photographers. Rooms I to IV, photographed by Christian Lenschow Kjølseth, follow one summer: the mask, the city, the monuments, the encounters. Rooms V to VIII, photographed by Jacob Tjellesen, widen the account — an afternoon on a bench with the helmet off, the gold pharaoh costume, the helmets built by hand, and the same practice carried through winter.
This is an exhibition proposal. The rooms, the hang and the print sizes are modelled at the scale of a large Danish museum gallery, so the work can be read at the distance it was made for. No institution is affiliated with this presentation. For exhibition enquiries, write to FatbikeHeroArt@gmail.com.
ArtistFatbikeHero — Tendai Frank Tagarira, Metadata Expressionist, Aarhus
PhotosChristian Lenschow Kjølseth (Rooms I–IV) · Jacob Tjellesen (Rooms V–VIII)
Works30 photographs, 8 rooms
Years2023–2026
CityAarhus, Denmark
MediumDocumentation of live street performance
FormatProposed archival pigment prints
EnquiriesFatbikeHeroArt@gmail.com
Rights© FatbikeHero. All rights reserved.
Room I
MaskenThe Mask
Three photographs made at arm's length. The costume is complete before anything is asked of it.
I.2
The Sound It Makes
Photographed head-on, at the distance a stranger would actually stand.
© FatbikeHero
I.3
Under the Hat
Seen from below: cut flowers, a plastic animal, and the sky behind them.
© FatbikeHero
Room II
ByenThe City
The figure set against Aarhus at its most ordinary: a kebab sign, a beer advert, cobblestones in the sun.
II.1
Standing in the Street
A full-length portrait taken where the work is done, not where it is shown.
© FatbikeHero
II.2
Cobblestones, Afternoon
The city keeps its own scale; the costume takes up one corner of it.
© FatbikeHero
II.3
Passing the Facade
In profile: the vest, the collar, the Nickelodeon bag, and a city that keeps selling beer.
© FatbikeHero
Room III
MonumenterMonuments
The figure measured against things built to outlast it: a church door, a bronze horseman, a traffic signal.
III.1
The Arch
The door was built for processions. It takes one rider without difficulty.
© FatbikeHero
III.2
Two Riders
One rider is cast in bronze and one is on a battery. Both are pointed forward.
© FatbikeHero
III.3
Waiting for Green
From behind, the vest states the name. The light is still red.
© FatbikeHero
Room IV
MøderEncounters
Movement, a stranger, and the machine at rest. This is the part of the work that cannot be planned.
IV.1
The City Goes Soft
Held in focus while everything parked behind him is not.
© FatbikeHero
IV.2
Someone Holds the Hat
The costume is handed over and examined. This is the transaction the work is built on.
© FatbikeHero
IV.3
The Machine at Rest
Without the rider it is equipment: a bike, a mask, a helmet full of flowers on the pavement.
© FatbikeHero
Room V
BænkenThe Bench
An afternoon that stopped moving. The bike is parked, the helmet is off, and the rider is just sitting down talking.
V.1
Pointing at the Face
The gesture arrives before the sentence does.
© FatbikeHero
V.2
Hand to Chin
Between two conversations, looking at something outside the frame.
© FatbikeHero
V.3
Profile, Gold Glasses
Close enough to see the sweat. No mask, no helmet, no hat.
© FatbikeHero
V.4
One Coca-Cola
Mid-sentence, holding the drink that turns up in half the archive.
© FatbikeHero
V.5
The Hero of Smiles Rides Again
A stranger draws the rider, writes the title himself, and hands it back.
© FatbikeHero
V.6
Two on a Bench
The same encounter from far enough back to see the building behind it.
© FatbikeHero
Room VI
FaraoenThe Pharaoh
One costume, four photographs. A gold headcloth, a motorcycle visor, and the black bike underneath it.
VI.1
The Shout Inside the Gold
Visor up, mouth open, a brick wall out of focus behind.
© FatbikeHero
VI.2
Standing With the Machine
Full length, in front of a shop that sells clothes to everybody else.
© FatbikeHero
VI.3
The Hand Comes Forward
Shot wide and close: the hand arrives before the rider does.
© FatbikeHero
VI.4
What the Visor Sees
The street, the bike and the photographer are all inside the visor.
© FatbikeHero
Room VII
HjelmeHelmets
The head is where the work gets built. Every helmet here is assembled by hand and then ridden through traffic.
VII.1
Orange Helmet, Four Crabs
A fire helmet, plastic candles and a small crowd of toys, all fixed on and worn out.
© FatbikeHero
VII.2
Orange Helmet, in Profile
The same helmet from the side; the visor is a bent strip of plastic.
© FatbikeHero
VII.3
Lego and Plaster
Purple plaster, Lego bricks, and a speaker bolted on above the ear.
© FatbikeHero
VII.4
Pointing at the Speaker
The speaker is the point, and the finger makes sure nobody misses it.
© FatbikeHero
VII.5
Flowers at Speed
A full flower suit, one hand up, and the sun straight into the lens.
© FatbikeHero
Room VIII
VinterenThe Winter
Cold months. The costume grows fur, the bike keeps going, and the greeting does not change.
VIII.1
Fox on the Head
A fur hat with a fox on it, held together by a toy sheriff's star.
© FatbikeHero
VIII.2
Laughing in Fur
Laughing in fur against brick, in the part of the year nobody photographs.
© FatbikeHero
VIII.3
Both Fists Up
Both fists up outside a shop, with the bike already loaded.
© FatbikeHero