The Queen and the Nightingale 

Artem creates fairy tale pieces for H.C. Andersen Hus, Odense 

Special effects and creative making company, Artem, brushed wings with royalty recently, when Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark, met a splendid nightingale at the opening of a new experiential museum in Odense.

The H. C Andersen Hus celebrates the fairy-tale world of the author and illustrator, combining a magical underground exhibition space with an otherworldly, labyrinthine garden. Museum design consultancy and Experience UK member, Event Communications, asked Artem to create and install a number of pieces for the various zones of the museum - from a spectacular, brass-feathered nightingale automaton to forests of sculpted steel coral. Gigantic ‘pencil-drawn’ steel flowers loom over visitors, while strategically-placed AV ‘viewers’ provide unexpected perspectives on other parts of the exhibition.

The commission show-cased the more artistic side of Artem – a company equally at home with exquisite model-making as it is with interactives and larger, engineering-based, projects. CEO and Co-founder of Artem, Mike Kelt, said, ‘Event Com had a really strong creative vision for this space, inspired by Andersen’s writing and illustrations, and by the looming darkness always present in his tales. It was a wonderful commission to work on – challenging, but ultimately very rewarding.’

The H.C. Andersen Hus covers an area of 5,600 square metres. It explores Andersen’s life, work and literary universe and merges architecture, sound, light and images to depict his stories. The new museum is now partially open in a ‘soft launch’ to the public. Further exhibits will open in phases over the summer.

For more information on this project, check out our case study, here.

 Image Credit - Dandelion detail - H C Andersen's Hus, Laerke Beck Johanson

Image Credit - Nightingale and Queen Margrethe - Ard Jongsma for H C Andersen Hus