Project of the week – Hidden Places (Aarhus)

Behind The Association Hidden Places hides a multidisciplinary team consisting of a visual artist and a group of actors, electronic musicians, architects, writers and project creators. The founder of Hidden Places is visual artist Annette Damgaard. With this project, she wants to rethink forgotten places with hidden potentials in Aarhus and show how each place hides its own unique history, whether it is contemporary or ancient.

It all began in 2008. At the time, Annette Damgaard was working for Kulturnat Aarhus. Along with a wide range of cultural actors from Aarhus and Central Denmark Region, she was invited to a mapping workshop by the Aarhus 2017-Secretariat, which at the time was working hard to ensure that the city won the title of European Capital of Culture in 2017 in front of Sønderborg.

The Secretariat succeeded in the latter. And Annette Damgaard also succeeded in using her extensive work and allowing it to be the background for the project ‘Hidden Places’. In the time of writing, the project has over 6000 followers on Facebook and attracts up to 100 people to each guided tour of the city's hidden places, which the association offers.

Annette Damgaard remembers:

"While working for Kulturnatten, I mapped the city's hidden urban areas in 2008. Back then, we called it 'hidden places and forgotten stories'. Then Aarhus 2017 invited cultural institutions and actors to participate in a number of visionary seminars where we developed ideas on the projects we would like to be a part of. I stopped at Kulturnatten in 2010, after which 'Hidden Places' became an independent project," says Annette Damgaard.

Follow 'Hidden Places' on Facebook.

Parallel lines
'Hidden Places' operates with two parallel lines. They are:

Communications and citizen involvement
This includes the exchange of images, information and stories about hidden places between citizens on the Facebook page. It also covers the guided tours that Annette Damgaard organize and make visible via Facebook and, for example, on Aarhus 2017’s website. However, the tours differ significantly from other guided tours:

"The tours may be organized, but the form and the route isn’t more set in stone that the ones participating can’t suddenly become co-guides. It is a very conscious choice to have a form where experience and knowledge are shared. I have been told that it is very different compared to other guided tours of the city. The tours focus on themes such as 'backyards', 'short cuts' and 'industrial monuments'; the stories do not relate to a specific period of time. They offer both urbanity, contemporary and ancient narratives at once. The focus is not only on the architecture or a particular century; Instead, we make room for the banal and the small personal stories," says Annette Damgaard.

Events in urban space - with a hidden potential
The second track is events. Events that rethink urban spaces with a hidden potential. The many photos on Facebook submitted by citizens have proven to be the largest source of reflection, and the interest revolves much around the room below ground or up in the clouds.

Events - below and above ground
Since the beginning of the project it has only gone in one direction: up. Both in terms of support from interested citizens as well as physically. If you look at the timeline, it paints a clear picture of projects that start below the ground and reach for the skies.

2013 - Culture Bunker
A project that took the city's ancient used shelters and transformed them into social meeting spaces and cultural platforms. Annette Damgaard calls it the prototypes on how to rethink the use of space. Some of the shelters were converted by architects S. Gustin and JU Ruban and students from the Aarhus School of Architecture, so it was possible to arrange poetry readings, small exhibitions and electronic music. Another room was home to a play by Teater Fluks.

Read the report on Culture Bunker.

2014 - 2015 - Ultra urban rooms for relaxation
This project will use the surplus space of the city, where ever there is space between two buildings. The project addresses air pollution of microparticles from cars and tries to create sustainable green rest rooms with a dimension of play and social space where people can laugh, smile, be together and just relax and be themselves. The municipality is in the process of investigating the spaces that may be used for the project. The project, which is already designed and organized by Hidden Places' board member – architect Stephan Gustin – will be launched in 2015.

In 2016, 'Hidden Places' climbs up the stairs and out onto the city’s balconies to test these as alternative cultural platforms, culminating in 2017 with a project on the city's rooftops.

Facts - four fast questions to Annette Damgaard

Who is 'Hidden Places' for?
"It is for everybody, since we operate in open spaces, and they are open to all. The guided tours have mainly had the support of people of 30 years and up. The events typically attract a somewhat younger generation, and an event organized together with the Natural History Museum had participants from 2-10 years of age."

Who submits the pictures on Facebook?
"The followers on Facebook are typically from 16-80 years old; we have a large audience, and many of them upload pictures."

Where does 'Hidden Places' take place?
"The events and guided tours take place in Aarhus - but there has been collaborations with for example Randers."

Read the story 'A 100th birthday equals closing time'.

What does the project give people?
"We communicate our projects digitally through reports, which also reach out internationally. Both the use of shelters and themes such as sustainability have a wide European interest. The feedback and interest are generally overwhelmingly good - but of course it's hard to know what people really think. "

The association Hidden Places has a board consisting of creative partners. They are:
• Annette Damgaard - representing ‘Hidden Places’
• Jette Sunesen - representing Aarhus Literature Centre
• Søren Knudsen Lyngsø - representing DIEM
• Stephan Gustin – representing the Architect Firm Gustin
• Jesper Urup Ruban - designer and architect
• Matias Mejlvang - independent architect
• Rasmus Malling Lykke Skov - representing Teater Fluks
• Henning B. Christensen - representing CAT Productions
• Brian Sten Larsen - representing CAT Productions