COMMUNITies

PULS is the name of a new exhibition space for video art Under Broerne near Vallensbæk Station, which opened in April 2025. It is a partnership between the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art and Vallensbæk Municipality behind PULS, which primarily showcases contemporary art – occasionally, there will also be films about and from Vallensbæk's activities throughout the year. Initially, PULS is presenting three video works with humor, focusing on three things that surround us every day in public spaces – cars, dogs, and mobile phones – each guiding us through the modern city. The first work is created by artist Lisa Strömbeck, In Memory of All Those Who Work Without Ever Getting a Reward, 2007. The protagonist of this video piece is a small dog – the artist’s own dog Ivan, who is forced to endure the hardest of trials for a dog. He balances a slice of salami on his nose, waiting for permission to eat it, a permission that never comes. The second video work is by artist Peter Land, Hope, 2023. In Hope, we find ourselves in the smooth bubble of the business world. Clips of men in suits are shown again and again. Smiling and self-confident, their body language exudes power. Upbeat music masks any conversation and limits the work to the images we see. In Hope, the artist engages with so-called “stock photos” and stylistically leans into the impersonal aesthetics of commercial films. To the brief glimpses that passersby at the station will get, the work will appear as a cross between an artwork and an advertisement for very old mobile phones. The third video work is by artist Kåre Frang, Wind, 2024. The action in Wind takes place on a public street and consists of repeated shots of a car hitting the sidewalk and breaking apart in slow motion. Although the scene is violent, the slow motion makes the car's movements appear strangely gentle. The video is edited so that the lifting and dropping of the car are omitted – we only see the car hit the ground, slowly breaking apart. To the viewer, it looks as though the car is bouncing apart, as if it were a bouncing ball.

What do football and art have in common? Both are represented by two cultural landmarks on the West Copenhagen suburbs, where community and local connection are essential values. Therefore, Brøndby IF and ARKEN are now entering a historic and unique partnership that will enrich both football and art enthusiasts with great experiences in an entirely new universe, creating new communities across football and art. As part of the collaboration, ARKEN will present a pop-up exhibition focusing on the many facets of popular culture, as reflected by the world of football on the West Side. Initially, a series of photographs will be showcased at the museum, with other initiatives in the works. (POP-UP) BRØNDBY IF X ARKEN will take place from the 01.05.25 - 09.06.25.

Digging holes and building mountains is an ancient game that is eternally fascinating - sand can be reused endlessly! Sand Day is an annual event where 1,500 children from schools and daycare centres across Vestegnen participate. This year they are invited to participate in the HOLE & MOUNTAIN beach lab, where they will dig deep, build high and shape and feel everything in between. The most important tools are shovels, buckets, hands, feet, eyes, ears, ideas and community. Sand Day for schools and daycare centres will be held on Friday 13.06.25 and for families on Saturday and Sunday. Sand Day is supported by the following municipalities: Ishøj, Vallensbæk, Brøndby, Glostrup, Hvidovre, Høje-Taastrup and Albertslund.

There was an award ceremony for the visual art and design students participating in Kørner's Art Contest 2024 in the museum's foyer. Kørner's art contest is organized every year for visual art students from Denmark and the Faroe Islands by the Association of Teachers of Fine Arts and Design. It means a lot to give a stage to young talents who dream of working with their art.

Over the decades, ARKEN has maintained strong and lasting collaborations with municipalities in the Vestegnen region west of Copenhagen, including the municipalities of Brøndby, Ishøj and Vallensbæk. The aim has been to give schoolchildren in all three municipalities an intensive three-day course at the museum and to collaborate with Ishøj Library and Ishøj's care homes to enhance the quality of life of local residents. Click 'Learning' if you're curious to learn more about our educational offerings.

Bricklaying students from NEXT Copenhagen had the experience of a lifetime when they brought Per Kirkeby's (1938-2018) drawings to life and erected four new brick sculptures in connection with the exhibition Bricks — Per Kirkeby (2023). Danish Minister for Children and Education, Mathias Tesfaye (Soc. Dem.) dropped by and was challenged by the hard-working students to demonstrate how much he could remember from his days as an apprentice bricklayer. The collaboration between ARKEN and NEXT paved the way for new approaches to interdisciplinary collaboration.

Students from a local high school (NEXT Sydkysten) chose the content of two talks inspired by the exhibition Group Therapy — New Contemporary Art. Contemporary art reflects our common world - also the parts of it that we do not all necessarily understand and therefore need to talk more about with each other. The students feel that there is a need for more common knowledge about the criminal environment and sexuality & consent, which was therefore chosen as themes for the two talks. A big thank you to the students for making us more aware of what everyday life in 2024 looks like through your eyes.

Guests of all ages remixed their experiences with BUTTERFLY!, ARKEN's collection curated by Esben Weile Kjær in the museum's first major collaborative work created by the museum guests themselves. The walls, floors, tables, chairs and ceiling served as canvases, and guests were invited to draw, cut and paste. The space was filled with love, chaos, poetry, exclamations, activism and a '90s vibe. The idea was simple -- do whatever you feel like.

Shop at Ishøj By Center and become an art collector. In 2019, shoppers were offered this deal when the museum moved into the Ishøj By Center shopping centre among its many shops and eateries. The ARKEN Lab branch was open for a three-year period and featured changing activities and exhibitions, including SOUVENIRS by Danish-Turkish artist Deniz Eroglu and HYDRA by Danish artist Eva Steen Christensen. SOUVENIRS was an art project designed as a kind of Ishøj community souvenir shop that sold quirky Ishøj souvenirs such as scarves saying Ishøj, a bird from a local playground landmark as a keychain. The pieces played with the boundaries between everyday activities and the space of art: If you bought a souvenir in the shop, you brought home a little work of art and became an art collector. In November 2022, Eva Steen Christensen established an open sewing workshop in ARKEN Lab where people could donate old clothes and textiles and help sew strips together for the sculpture "Female Nude", which was shown at ARKEN in 2023 as part of the HYDRA exhibition.

How can art be used as a tool to explore underlying dynamics, power structures and messages in an age when technology and artificial intelligence are impacting the way we communicate, interact and form communities? Through camps, talks and events, this project explored how contemporary art can establish a dialogue about current trends and taboos and shed light on blind spots. The project was a collaboration between the Danish Film Institute, Cybernauterne, Aarhus Municipal Libraries, Roskilde Libraries, Tønder Municipal Libraries and numerous artists and writers as well as schools and youth study programmes from all over the country. Projects in the Art + Tech Lab are funded by, among others, @lliancen, which is a partnership between the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), the Media Council for Children and Young People, Børnes Vilkår, the Danish Youth Council, Skolelederforeningen, Efterskoleforeningen, Styrelse for Uddannelse og Kvalitet (STUK), the National Centre for Documentation and Counter Extremism (NCFE), and the Ole Kirk's Fond.