Green Contemporary Art
In 2024, Nikolaj Kunsthal Green Attraction must be certified. The same applies to Thorvaldsens Museum and the Museum of Copenhagen with which we are organisationally connected via Art & History, a part of the Culture and Leisure Administration in the City of Copenhagen. With a grant from the Ministry of Culture, a process has been set in motion to support the transition to a more sustainable exhibition practice.
In collaboration with the consulting company In futurum as well as a number of museums, art galleries and exhibition designers, we investigate with the project Circular Exhibition Practices how the industry can work more purposefully with the circular economy on an organisational, strategic and practical level through joint solutions, the sharing economy, climate-friendly and resource-efficient design as well as green behavioral changes.
At the time of writing, various ethnographic studies, interviews and workshops are in full swing, where good and bad experiences from home and abroad are collected in order to develop action-oriented solutions that can benefit the entire industry. If you are curious to know more, subscribe to the Circular Exhibition Practices newsletter.
Exploratory tests and concrete experiences from the world of Shane Brox
At Nikolaj Kunsthal, we have already gained some fruitful experience in designing and producing exhibitions that aim for CO2 neutrality. As part of a test project initiated by the Nordic Council of Ministers, we have made a CO2 account for the Shane Brox exhibition "Beauty in the Beast", which could be experienced at the Upper Gallery in the period 8 September 2024 to 21 January 2024. In this connection, we made a 360-degree check of the resource consumption in connection with, for example, the production of works, transport and electricity consumption in the exhibition.
Helene Nyborg Bay, artistic director at Nikolaj Kunsthal, elaborates:
"It has been fun and not least educational to try my hand at a more systematic investigation of the CO2 footprint in Shane Brox's exhibition. The fact that almost all of Shane's work-related material choices were already recycled contributed to us being able to create an exhibition that was largely zero on the CO2 accounts. In addition, all work transport has taken place locally – among others on a cargo bike – and the podiums that were part of the exhibition were borrowed from a nearby cultural institution. In our exhibition programme, we generally focus on the local art scene in Copenhagen, and with this case it is great to get proof that this relationship also has a positive effect on the climate footprint. And then it is an important point that it is possible to produce popular exhibitions with a low CO2 footprint without compromising on quality.”
Read more about the above case on the website of the Association of Danish Museums, where our experiences are part of a collection of cases.
With effect from the calendar year 2024, we have decided to reduce the number of main exhibitions from six to four annual exhibitions at Nikolaj Kunsthal. In addition to savings on CO2, this provision also means that we can immerse ourselves a little more in the individual exhibitions.
