A Danish – Swedish collaboration between JAC Studios and scenographer Tove Alderin to design an exhibition for The Royal Danish Arsenal Museum, Copenhagen. Within this collaboration, the role of exhibition architect goes beyond the design of display, involving active participation in communication, the choice of artefacts, organisation and pedagogy. In short, space as a tool for communication.

The project is composed of two exhibitions – The Danish Wars and The Museum Collections. These exhibitions span 500 years of Danish war history and are set in the 160-meter long Arsenal Hall, built by Christian d. IV. The challenge of this project was to design an exhibition that marks itself, and at the same time preserves and shows courtesy to the Arsenal Hall, which is itself an artefact.

Transparency of war and space

The project was the result of a competition, where the museum asked for a series of closed spaces for each war. We challenged this thought and opened up the exhibition, creating transparency which allowed for connections and references between individual wars to be understood.

This can be clearly seen in the open design of The Danish Wars which spans the length of the Arsenal Hall. It is set within a steel container that projects through the rows of columns. The long display case is divided into 48 sections, each presenting one war. The artefacts within these sections are organised to give a scenographic experience but without turning into props.

A staging of power and humility

The film “MAGT” is projected onto the 140-meter long wall, recalling an emotional journey through Danish was history, a staging of man, body, power and humility.

“By introducing the poetry of sound and moving images, we aimed to provide the exhibition with the presence of human and body. The movie is not a narrative but an eternal march forward, through the wars.”  Johan Carlsson