I am super proud and thrilled that my research project “Artistic Exchanges [ArtEx]: The Royal Danish Theatre and Europe” has been awarded a major grant of DKK 6.191.225 by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. I look forward to working with Danish and international colleagues on all the exciting plans that are in the making for the next three years. Thanks to Aarhus University and the University of Bergen for their support. Stay tuned for more and check out the abstract below!
Abstract: The Royal Danish Theatre was and is a key institution for cultivating and examining Danish national identity, but its significance largely owed to a marked transnational outlook and artistic exchange. From its foundation in 1748, the theatre attracted the foremost international artists and Danish artists travelled extensively. The theatre thus mirrors the broader history of the long 19th century’s formation of national identities which paradoxically relied on intense transnational exchange. ArtEx will conduct the first major study of the theatre’s internationally unique and remarkably extensive archive combining digital tools and qualitative case studies with the objective of exploring 1) How artistic practices and aesthetic ideas intersected and travelled across Europe 1748-1948; 2) how cultural exchange help us understand how art, artists and institutions of art act as agents for shaping (trans)national identities; and 3) how European spaces and cultures are imagined and performed.