Daily Reporter: August 29 and 30

Hej! My name is Brielle (she/her/hers) and I was the program reporter on Tuesday and Wednesday of our second week in Copenhagen. As we continue to explore Danish culture, museums, and art, we’ve kept our critical lenses on to look for connections to last week, neglected narratives, and who is doing the storytelling. This week, we dived into discussions on Denmark’s strong sense of white nationalism, which greatly contributes to the forgotten narratives from the colonies and the general unawareness of colonial realities among the Danish people.

Tuesday, August 29
Guest Speaker and Director Dr. Helle Stenum of We Carry It Within Us

Private screening of Dr. Helle Stenum's We Carry It Within Us at the University of Copenhagen.

Dr. Helle Stenum screened her film, We Carry It Within Us, presenting voices from the US Virgin Islands on colonialism. Chenoa Lee, Temi Odumosu, La Vaughn Belle, Tiphanie Yanique, and Tami Navarro all describe the disconnect in the colonial narratives between the Virgin Islands/West Indies and Denmark. The Danish believe a sympathetic Dane, Peter von Scholten, freed the slaves, while the Virgin Islanders recognize General Buddhoe as the leader of a revolt that freed the slaves. The documentary also touches on the power of imagery in storytelling. Chenoa Lee discusses how slaves were drawn as detailed people in slave ship depictions, but Temi Odumosu points out the lack of humanity given to Virgin Islanders and African women in art from the time. These images highlight the horrors in thinking and reality of the time. Temi goes on to describe that art, literature, and philosophy constructed slaves as non-human and meant for labor as an attempt to justify slavery. However, this contrasts with the slave ship packing depiction, which Chenoa describes as the artist bothering to draw them as human, but treating them as commodities. When discussing the reactions to the film with Dr. Helle Stenum, we noted the many attempts, including recently, where the Danish have protected their nationalism over their people. This is especially evident with the recent Quran burning where the discourse has been about freedom of speech and religious texts instead of the impact on the Muslim community in Denmark.

Visit to Danish Design Museum with Guest Speaker and Museum Curator, Trine Helle

Filled with many chairs and everyday, historical artifacts used by the upper class, the guided tour of several exhibits in the Design Museum activated our critical lenses when making connections to colonial narratives. The museum proudly displayed a cow intestine lamp as a new, innovative use of cow intestines, without acknowledging the indigenous Greenlandic Inuit people using seal and whale guts as a waterproofing material for centuries. While this approach may be new to Denmark, these kinds of sustainable practices and designs are not new to indigenous people.

Kathrine Barbro Bendixen's cow intestine lamp in her exhibit, Inside Out.

Additionally, in Trine Helle’s Wonder exhibit, we saw a Danish porcelain polar bear, acknowledging Denmark as an Arctic nation due to its relationship with Greenland, which is unique language to describe this history.

Trine Helle's Wonder exhibit.

The Design Museum also contained bits of humor when learning the behind-the-scenes work of a curator, such as placing the items in a way to depict a bird drinking from a bowl or impressing other curators with surprises. I left this museum thinking of the many chairs we saw, but also the privilege displayed without acknowledging the related classism or history.

Funny exhibit setup where the bird looks like it's drinking from the bowl.

Quinn and the giant chair at the Design Museum.

Allie and Meheq at the tables through time.

More chairs!

Even more chairs! And a connection to the reading about how Danish chairs were durable enough to be stomped/jumped on. 

Wednesday, August 30

Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK)

SMK entrance.

Group inside the SMK.

At the SMK, we were tasked to find one piece from any exhibit to present to the group. Riley and Julia started us off strong with a presentation on Jessie Kleemann’s exhibit, Running Time, where Kleemann explores her struggles with her Greenlandic and Danish identities, including a lack of control, identity, and power.

Riley and Julia presenting Running Time.

Meheq and Casey presented on A Stretch of Coast in Greenland. Midnight by Jens Erik Carl Rasmussen, a Danish painter. Their critical lens noticed it was the only piece depicting Greenland in a room full of Denmark landscapes and close to the sculpture, A Victorious Danish Soldier. The contrasting identities in this room emphasize the power of who is telling whose history.

Meheq and Casey presenting A Stretch of Coast in Greenland. Midnight.

Notice the contrast between the Danish soldier statue and the Greenland piece.

Nearby, Allie and I presented a classical Danish art piece called The Greek Poet Sappho and the Girl from Mytilene by Nicolai Abildgaard. We noticed it was the only artwork in its showroom where women were present in the absence of men. The artist was viewed as a social critic, leading him to experience rejection and censorship. The piece Allie and I chose depicted love between two women, likely a controversial Danish painting for 1809.

The Greek Poet Sappho and the Girl from Mytilene.

Maya presented a piece created by a student of Nicolai Abildgaard, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg. The piece was a model ship, which despite its lack of proper ship-building technique, shows detailed sails and fine carpenter work. Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, “the father of Danish painting,” loved to sail and paint seascapes.

Maya presenting on Model of a Smack.

In contrast to the many paintings of upper-class Danish life, Jamie picked a rural piece more personal to her Danish ancestry of farming. The piece was titled Harvest by Laurits Andersen Ring, and depicted a farmer harvesting corn. Ring, an atheist, intentionally placed the horizon very high on the canvas in an attempt to keep humanity grounded. Jamie noted the themes of life vs. death in the Ring showroom.

Jamie presenting on Harvest.

Lastly, we took a journey to the modern art exhibit of a piece titled Rose Laying the Table by Astrid Holm. Quinn and Ashley connected this piece of a woman from the West Indies to our conversations about the We Carry It Within Us documentary where we discussed the power of images and who creates them to tell whose story.

Quinn and Ashley presenting Rose Laying the Table.

In summary, the SMK Museum contained pieces to be critical of, such as A Stretch of Coast in Greenland. Midnight and Rose Laying the Table, but also pieces that highlight our discussions of the voices from the colonies such as Jesse Kleemann’s exhibit.

Wrap Up

Now that we know aspects of Denmark’s colonial narrative, we can no longer not know. We have been using this knowledge to poke holes in the narratives we’re being told or shown in exhibits, discourse, and art. While the past two days contained many, many Danish chairs, they also contained discussions on the power of storytelling and imagery, pivotal topics to our program themes of colonialism and art activism.