Danish Museum Director Talks the History of Shit, Cutting up Dead Animals Ahead of Bookworm Talk

The days of stodgy and dull museum exhibits are reaching their end, at least if Rane Willerslev has anything to say about it. The director of the National Museum of Denmark, who will give a talk at the Bookworm on Nov 21 at 7.30pm, has previously installed “boring buttons” among his exhibits so that visitors could demonstrate if they weren’t charmed by what they saw. He also made the installations hands-on, covering zany topics like the history of plumbing. These efforts, as well as his role in hosting the documentary series Rane’s Museum have made Willerslev famous in his native Denmark.

Now, Willerslev comes to China to shoot a Beijing-focused episode as well as to meet with Forbidden City officials and museum directors to see what he can learn from his Middle Kingdom counterparts. Ahead of his Bookworm talk, he tells us more about making history fun.

How did you get into this line of work?
When I was a child, the National Museum was a place of great importance to many people, including myself. It was exciting to go there. But that importance has dwindled in recent years. I'm keen to revitalize it in Danish society.

What have you done to turn that around?
Last year we created a children’s programme and the aim was to make it exciting, so children would drag their parents there, rather than the other way around.

We invented a "boring button" that you can push and something unexpected will happen. That was very successful and created a lot of discussion in the media. The phrase “boring button” entered the national dialogue for a period, and journalists were in parliament asking officials about, and writing in their articles, about the “boring button.”

We tried to reinvent museums, and be receptive to criticism sometimes. Some people have complained that we are compromising too much and become too populistic. But I think it’s important that museums try to adapt themselves to this age, and get involved in new methods, taking risks, doing things no one has done before.

What are some specific examples of those risks?
We had a program where children could learn how to cut open an animal with Stone Age tools. We had a real animal in there, a dead one killed by a hunter of course, and the children would learn how cavemen chopped it up.

And then there was our program about feces. What’s an okay phrase for that in English? Shit? Anyway, people could come to learn about the history of mankind in terms of how it dealt with its waste and plumbing because it’s a huge indicator of societal development. And it’s a very attention-grabbing topic!

What made you want to come to China and introduce your museum’s work?
It goes way back to my first day as the director of the museum. I had a delegation visiting from the Forbidden City on my first day on the job. At that time I promised to come to visit them, meet their colleagues and find out how they run museums here, and somehow create a partnership. It would be so exciting to have more Chinese people visiting our museum when they travel to Denmark!

Rane Willerslev will give a talk at the Bookworm on Nov 21 at 7.30pm. Entry is RMB 60 (includes a free drink). For more information, click here.

Get a bit of culture in 'ya, with our Arts and Cultural listings right here.

Photo: berlingske.dk