"Why always travelling to the South?" must I have been thinking when I visited Copenhagen for the first time. To be honest, I had this opportunity to stay a week in Denmark thanks to Dj Ishtar, a girlfriend who was participating in an art-project developed by one of Denmark's famous artistic directors called Kirsten Dehlholm. So, before I knew, I was staying at the Hotel Pro Forma (Kirsten's atelier and the name of her company or the name of an hotel!) between hard working art-related employees. Every morning I had to pass them in their office in my underwear and a towel around my neck to be able to take a shower. I thought Dutch people were tolerant, but the Danish are much more relaxed when it comes to nudity at work. Anyway, I was lucky to get introduced into Copenhagen by Denmark's artistic levelled community and therefore I felt blessed! It already started in the afternoon, when everybody at Hotel Pro Forma gathered together for the breakfast. There I have met people who can eat their lunch at work in a very cultivated and refined way. The Danish do not only create high-end design stuff (Lego, furniture, architecture, etc.) to use but also to eat! First thing to do when you are in Denmark is going to one of those huge supermarkets and check out the well-designed food. Not only the packaging is highly attractive, also what's inside those jolly jars, packings, bottles, etc. Especially the herring section is incredible! I immediately felt at home as you can conclude. Just like they have created their food in stores that perfectly, the same counts for the buildings in the city: colourful and tasty! In the center almost every building has been painted in a different colour. It looked like being in Havana-Cuba or somewhere in the Mediterranean. Sophisticated people who understood the meaning of life, I obviously thought. To compensate the weather conditions they make sure that everything else in life remains in its aesthetic value or at least becomes aesthetically. From this point of view, it is a bit of a contradiction that the notorious cartoons were not that funny at all. Symbolically speaking, it is a good horse that never stumbles. Even a Viking can loose his blond locks once in a while... |
