Exhibitions explored

Your past – our future

Your past – our future! That’s the title of this outdoor exhibition, which was created in a collaboration between the 7th grade at Grindsted Private School and Mark through the concept “Companies adopt school classes”, facilitated by The Relations Network.

Each sign stands as if it has grown out of the ground, and it seems far from random when one of the signs reads, “Hey you! I’m not your trash can! Courtesy of Mother Nature.” Mother Earth is putting on a demonstration with the help of the 7th grade class at Grindsted Private School. This ‘sign forest’ is a free space where students have been given the opportunity to speak their minds out loud. And they do so with courage, commitment and drive.

The exhibition is about man’s imprint on nature – a topic that Mark has adopted as a main theme in the communication of local cultural history, because it has roots in all the museum’s areas of responsibility: agriculture, industry and tourism. The landscape around us is created by people. The heathland, the fields, the plantation are all examples of cultural landscapes, not nature. Industry has impacted the environment in many ways and so does tourism. With these responsibilities, the museum is committed to the concept of sustainability.

Sustainable development is something that matters to all of us, and it is something that young people are concerned about when thinking about their future. This became clear to museum curator, Anna Louise Siggaard, when a few months ago she took the 7th grade class on a short walk around the heath, through the plantation, across the field and down by the water of the river Syrenøen at The Museum Farm Karensminde. The walk turned into a conversation about how nature is doing right now and what we can do to make nature better. The conversation planted the idea for this exhibition.

Listening to the audio files behind the QR codes on the signs is moving. “Should we just shut down Grindsted?” someone asks, referring to the debate about the pollution from the old Grindsted plant. The sentence expresses both frustration and powerlessness, which is precisely the point of this exhibition and a large part of the museum’s DNA: to give our citizens a space to express themselves, a place where it can be experienced and resonate with other citizens – both young and old. At the same time, we are made aware of the actions that can actually be taken to leave the earth better than we received it, and that gives us hope.

Earth Carries Your Mark

When you move around the outdoor areas of the museum garden, you are met by large photo signs. All photos illustrate the title of the exhibition, 'Earth Carries Your Mark', and nature is grasped as a cultural-historical element.

As you visit the museum farm's gardens, meadow and fields, the large photos emphasize the area's history. You are reminded that the Museum Farm Karensminde was built next to the lush meadow because man has used nature's resources in agriculture, and that nature is an important part of culture.

We cultivate and use nature every day for crops both in the fields, in the greenhouse, in the garden and in allotments. We remove nature to make way for cities and construction, but we also bring nature into the cities. And when industry is abandoned, nature grows up again – completely without our help.

How does the earth carry your mark?

Man and nature

In the exhibition 'Man and Nature' you meet people who live in harmony with nature.

You meet the meadow farmer, the moor farmer and the poor who lived on the heath. You meet dairymen, factory workers, working class and city dwellers. You meet contractors and inventors who create development and sometimes pollution, and connection to this, you also meet Denmark's first minister for pollution control. You meet tourists who travel to ‘pig parties’ in Mallorca. You meet people who use nature as a stress reliever to find peace and balance.

And through all these meetings, you meet yourself. You travel through 400 years through three periods: Agriculture, industry and tourism. Your story is part of Denmark's history.

From meadow to museum

Under the gate vaults on the museum farm's milk road, you come across a small room that previously housed some of the farm animals. The smell of pig is gone and the cold stone floor has been replaced by bright floorboards.

Instead of farm animals, you move between four columns from floor to ceiling of stories and objects - a unified narrative of the meadow farm Karensminde, which became the museum farm you have come to visit.

You will feel the magnificence of the farm, learn more about the cultivation of the heath and experience the transition to a state-recognised cultural history museum.

‘From meadow to museum’ provides a quick introduction to the place and surroundings you have arrived at.