Published 30 may 2022

The Glyptotek is turning a museum visit into a fun game. In the run-up to the summer holidays, the museum is opening a creative clay workshop, where children will create everything from patterns and monsters to ornaments and fantasy creatures – you name it – all of which will become part of a huge joint work of art. This is the first time the Glyptotek has dedicated a workshop to the creative power of children and young people.

On Saturday 18 June, the Glyptotek will open the first-ever workshop for children and their adults in the museum’s history – Patterns and Monsters. The workshop’s participants will explore the craft of printing in clay, creating their own art, inspired by the imaginative, rich details of the museum’s building, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary. The workshop is the result of collaboration between exhibition designers and an artist.
“Take a really close look at the walls, floors and ceilings of the museum and you’ll see that they’re covered with all sorts of weird patterns, grotesque monsters, flowers, animals, seashells and angel wings. The decoration is so out to lunch it will hopefully kindle the imagination and creativity of the participants,” says Stefan Bang, Interpretation Manager, Children and Young People.

Community and recycling
“The reason we chose to set up a clay workshop is because clay is the base material of sculpture. It enables us to work three dimensionally and to interpret the architecture and decorations of the museum. Clay is a wonderful material to work with. It’s also an organic, recyclable material. The workshop’s aprons have been made from old exhibition banners from the museum’s façade, and all the furniture in the workshop has been constructed using recycled materials from a previous exhibition. Patterns and Monsters pays tribute to the museum’s stunning building. We hope it will inspire visitors to explore all the fantastic, quirky details of the Glyptotek,” says Stefan Bang.
The families’ clay prints will all form part of one huge, joint work of art, which will be exhibited in the museum in a special, theatrical exhibition set, inspired by the architecture and colours of the Glyptotek.

More focus on families with children
“Even though the Glyptotek already has various provisions and activities for families with children, we didn’t have a place where children and adults could unleash their creativity. We really want to become a more child-friendly cultural attraction, and we hope the new clay workshop will create an engaging museum visit that involves contemplation, play and humour,” says Stinna Toft, Head of Learning and Audience Engagement. “We hope that both children and adults will leave the museum and go out into the world, observing details, colours and shapes they never noticed before, and viewing everything in a new light.”

About the workshop

The Glyptotek’s clay studio Patterns and Monsters is for children and their adults. It is free for children below 18 years of age. The workshop is open from 11.00 am and 3.00 pm between 18 June and 4 September.
Patterns and Monsters is the result of the museum’s collaboration with Kurtzweil Exhibition Design, and the custom-made plaster stamps in the workshop were devised together with the artist Ida Retz Wessberg.

The workshop is part of the Glyptotek’s 125th anniversary celebration of Vilhelm Dahlerup’s building and the project Living Buildings – Exploring the Architecture of the Glyptotek, which has been generously supported by the following foundations:

Carlsbergs Mindelegat
Thee New Carlsberg Foundation
Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond

The project is part of Kickstart Kulturturismen (Kickstart Cultural Tourism), which is funded by the Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs, Dansk Storbyturisme and Wonderful Copenhagen’s Culture Test Lab.
The clay for the workshop is sponsored by Cerama.
The aprons are made out of old exhibition banners and produced by the social-economic enterprise, I Tråd Med Verden.