Denmark’s Bastard Treasures is a collaboration with weaver and PhD student at Göteborg University Rosa Tolnov Clausen.

This project is about the world famous yet – in Denmark – virtually unknown phenomena the Skærbæk tapestries. These were made around the year 1900 in Southern Jutland, which was at the time under German rule. In fact this part of Denmark was German between 1658 and 1920 but through out this period, both german-minded and danish-minded people lived in the area, causing some tension.

With this project we wanted to highlight a much overlooked part of Danish arts and craft history. These tapestries were important works in the Jugend Art movement, at the turn of the previous century. We wanted to pay homage to them with this weaving workshop in Skærbæk and to create an opportunity to talk about these forgotten gems in the very village, where they were created more than a century ago. I created a series of tabloid inspired graphics as promotion for the event, combining contemporary aesthetics with imagery and quotes from the historical texts regarding this period.

Skærbæk weaving school, which produced the tapestries, was founded by an infamous a german minded local pastor. While it was both thanks to him, that these tapestries won gold and silver medals at world expositions, it was also his megalomanic ways that backrupted the enterprise.