Denmark’s Hans Christian Andersen Museum Gets Fairytale Makeover

Museum-goers can get involved in Andersen's tales, such as searching for the pea that disturbs the princess's sleep Claus Fisker Ritzau Scanpix/AFP
Museum-goers can get involved in Andersen's tales, such as searching for the pea that disturbs the princess's sleep Claus Fisker Ritzau Scanpix/AFP
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Denmark’s Hans Christian Andersen Museum Gets Fairytale Makeover

Museum-goers can get involved in Andersen's tales, such as searching for the pea that disturbs the princess's sleep Claus Fisker Ritzau Scanpix/AFP
Museum-goers can get involved in Andersen's tales, such as searching for the pea that disturbs the princess's sleep Claus Fisker Ritzau Scanpix/AFP

Denmark is honoring its most famous writer, Hans Christian Andersen, with a revamped museum that aims to immerse visitors in the fantasy worlds he created.

Visitors have expressed delight with the new museum, which reopened in the summer and saw renovation work completed this month before it was shut as part of Denmark's efforts to fight a Covid resurgence.

From "The Little Mermaid" to "The Snow Queen", Andersen's works -- which the author called his "children" -- have inspired countless Disney films, ballets, songs and books.

The old Hans Christian Andersen museum in the writer's hometown of Odense in central Denmark was a "traditional biographical museum" filled with "a lot of artefacts and text", said Lone Weidemann, marketing coordinator for Odense museums.

But visitors "were looking for his fairytales, because that's what they know".

In a magical transformation that any fairy godmother would be proud of, city authorities have overseen a seven-year renovation of the museum into a sprawling complex above and below the cobbled streets of Odense's old town.

After entering the redesigned museum, visitors move through the modest cottage where Andersen spent his childhood in the early 1800s, before being swept into a vast underground space devoted to his stories -- filled with animations, interactive exhibits and music.

The museum "takes you to a complete other world", said Ara Halici, a tourist from the Netherlands who made the trip to Odense especially for the museum.

"How fantastic it is to be taken away from your daily struggles in life," he said, AFP reported.

Having arrived just days before Denmark shut down cultural venues to fight a resurgent coronavirus pandemic, his story at least had a happy ending.

Andersen's life story is woven through the exhibits, which chart his humble beginnings as the child of an illiterate washerwoman and an impoverished shoemaker.

Born in 1805 and losing his father aged 11, Andersen left Odense three years later and headed for the capital, Copenhagen, where he dreamt of becoming an actor.

By the time of his death in 1875, Andersen had produced 158 fairytales and 800 poems, enjoying success in later life thanks to the popularity of tales including "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "Thumbelina".

Artefacts still have their place in the new exhibition, including the writer's inkwell and a champagne glass given to him by Jenny Lind, a Swedish singer who turned down his marriage proposal.

"The rooms, together with the architecture, the sound and music -- it's a whole experience," said Danish teacher Jonna Vind, who was there with a group of her students.

"It binds together all the senses."

The new museum designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma -- the man behind Tokyo's new Olympic stadium -- opened in the summer but work was only completed in early December.

From above, its circular structures and winding outdoor gardens resemble four green buttons supported on wooden stilts.

With two-thirds of the exhibition space below ground, the architect was inspired by "The Tinderbox", Andersen's story in which a hollow tree is a gateway to an underground world.

"The idea behind the architectural design is similar to Andersen's method, where a small world suddenly transforms into a larger universe," Kuma said.

The museum's metamorphosis began in the early 2010s after Odense authorities drew up a plan to keep cars out of the centre of the city of 205,000 inhabitants.

Work began in 2014 after the closure of a major road that left the space available for the new complex.

The old museum, which stood since 1930 in the house where Andersen was born, closed at the end of 2017.

Since the reopening, 40,000 people have passed through its doors. But the new Covid safety measures introduced in December meant it had to close once again, and the numbers had in any case been hit badly by the drop-off in foreign tourists.

The previous Hans Christian Andersen museum pulled in 100,000 visitors a year, the vast majority of them from abroad including 20,000 from China, where Andersen is very popular.



Two of a Kind: Najin and Fatu, the Last Northern White Rhinos

Fatu, right, and her mother Najin are the only northern white rhinos left on the planet - AFP
Fatu, right, and her mother Najin are the only northern white rhinos left on the planet - AFP
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Two of a Kind: Najin and Fatu, the Last Northern White Rhinos

Fatu, right, and her mother Najin are the only northern white rhinos left on the planet - AFP
Fatu, right, and her mother Najin are the only northern white rhinos left on the planet - AFP

Najin spends a lot of time by herself these days because her rebellious daughter prefers to hang out with her best friend.

This might sound like a common parental complaint, but Najin has a particularly strong argument -- she and her daughter are the only members of their species left on Earth.

They are the last two northern white rhinos, which have been considered functionally extinct since Najin's father, Sudan, died in 2018.

Uterus problems mean neither can give birth, so scientists are trying in-vitro fertilisation to bring northern whites back from the brink.

Earlier this month, AFP met the two rhinos inside their heavily guarded enclosure in Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

- Najin, the lonely mum -

Both Najin and her daughter were born in captivity in a Czech zoo before being moved to Ol Pejeta in 2009.

Najin has bad knees owing to her time in captivity, and her horn droops forward.

She is also prone to bouts of flatulence.

At 35 years old, she is only expected to live another five to 10 years.

"I'm getting a little bit worried," admitted head caregiver Zacharia Mutai, who spends 12 hours with the rhinos most days.

"They have different personalities just like human beings," he told AFP.

Najin is his "favourite" because she stays so calm, he said.

At one point, the inquisitive rhino lumbered up to inspect a camera tripod, sending AFP's correspondents scampering.

Najin also inspected a nearby car in the 700-acre enclosure.

The rhinos are under 24-hour protection, with a watchtower, armed guards and sniffer dogs to deter poachers who have hunted northern whites to the brink of extinction.

There has been no poaching at Ol Pejeta for seven years, Mutai said. The only intruders in the enclosure are now antelopes that nimbly leap over the fence, and some wandering warthogs.

But aside from Mutai, Najin seems to spend most of her time by herself.

- Fatu, the grumpy teen -

Born in 2000, Fatu was much younger when she came to Ol Pejeta and has embraced being wild more than her mother.

She spends almost all her time with Tawu, a wild southern white rhino introduced to demonstrate life outside a zoo.

Southern whites are a closely related subspecies that had their own brush with extinction in the 1800s, but now number more than 15,000.

They look similar -- both are grey, not white -- but the northern subspecies are smaller, with fluffier ears and slightly longer tails.

Fatu, who turns 25 in June, was initially quite friendly when she arrived at Ol Pejeta.

She has become "a little bit grumpy" and "behaves sort of like a human teenager", said Mutai.

Fatu sometimes tries to fight Najin, forcing the rangers to trim her horn so she does not wound her mother.

She also has the fate of her kind resting on her shoulders.

Fatu once tried to mate, but it turned out there was a problem with her uterus.

Unlike Najin, she still has viable eggs that can be fertilised with the sperm of dead males.

Fatu must be fully sedated each time scientists collect her eggs.

That has happened more than 20 times, making her probably the most sedated rhino in history, but Fatu remains in perfect health, said Jan Stejskal, coordinator of the BioRescue project aiming to save the northern white.

The scientists plan to start implanting the first northern white embryos in a southern white rhino surrogate female this year.

If successful, it would give Fatu and Najin a new purpose: to show the baby how to be a northern white rhino, so this is not lost to time.

It is a "huge responsibility", Mutai said, adding: "I think we are going to succeed."