Site-specific installation made for KBH Kunsthal (2006) Ink drawings and text fragments on semitransparent drawing foil Sound playing from the montre in shifting intervals: H.C Lumbye's Columbine Polka Mazurka

The site-specific installation "Notes – Tivoli" was made for KPH Kunsthal. The showcase was situated in the centre of Copenhagen, near the main entrance of the amusement park Tivoli in an area densely populated with travel agents and tourist informations. The idea was to create an "alternative" tourist information not only defining Tivoli as a national symbol but also discussing what such a national symbol consists of, and how it was created.

The work consists of drawings of The Pantomime Theatre (1874) and Tivoli's Concert Hall (1902) as well as text fragments concerning the orientalist architecture of Tivoli in relation to notions of national identity.

The work was part of the exhibition "700% plus, KBH KUNSTHAL_Centenniale", KBH Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2006.

English translation of the text fragments from the installation:

Ottoman: While the interior fashion of the 1850s proscribes living rooms decorated as oriental caves with Persian carpets and ottomans, the amusement park Tivoli was founded in 1943 at Vesterport outside the ramparts of the old city of Copenhagen.

Mocca: Inside Tivoli the inhabitants of the city could stroll around in oriental settings, and in the 1844 "Tivoli Newspaper" one could find instructions for how to drink a cup of mocca.

"You need not be shy. The hospitable divans are pleased to receive you with open arms and you need only command, and your favourite drink will stand, steaming, before you. But no! You prefer relishing it outside. The Mohammedan drink is to be inhaled in real Mohammedan manner to full puffs of the tobacco pipe."

Orient: With a Chinese tower, blue onion domes and a Turkish bazaar the architecture of Tivoli represented a Danish version of an orientalist trend coming from the larger European capitals, especially London and Paris. After Denmark's loss of Southern Jutland to Germany in 1864, there was a movement towards England and France in order to define national identity as "non-German". The Oriental stylistic traits were used in order to show Denmark as modern and cosmopolitan nation.

Summer night: The Germans bombed Tivoli several times During World War II as revenge for Danish sabotage. The 24th of June 1944 Shalburg-groups blew up Tivoli's Concert Hall. The Arabically inspired concert hall with its domes and minarets had become a symbol of Danishness.

Imagination: I am sitting 6191 kilometres away thinking that when I was a child, Tivoli represented the big world to me. In the souvenir shop I saw a Chinese lamp, which looked Chinese in a different way than Chinese things otherwise look Chinese. Before it became possible for everyone to travel around the world, one could visit Tivoli and see "ethnic caravans" or "colonial exhibitions". This made it possible to catch a glimpse of "the foreign", or at least a representation of it.

Kurashiki: In the Japanese city Kurashiki there is an amusement park created as a copy of Tivoli in Copenhagen. Tivoli's original name was "Tivoli & Vauxhall" – "Tivoli" referring to Jardain de Tivoli in Paris (which got its name from the Roman town Tivoli) and "Vauxhall" referring to Vauxhall Gardens in London. Tivoli was later an inspiration for Disneyland.

See the related work "Postcards – Tivoli"