Les Hannah, day 25, part 1

I awoke rather early, but honestly I have to some degree lost my sense of time during this trip. I have not been so concern with the time as I normally am while at home and my regular job. There time is critical, and I am always aware of it, whether I want to be or not. My phone is always going off with a reminder to go to this meeting or must do that task. I have had no such thing on this adventure, so my sense of timing is off, for that reason and also because I have not had a regular schedule this semester. Because I knew this Fulbright assignment was coming I had no classes at NSU to teach during this Fall semester, and my schedule while in Denmark has not been typical. I measure my life in coffee spoons called semesters, and this has been no regular spoon.

Anyway, up and ready; got breakfast at a small café just up the street from the hotel. More walking, more seeing. I made it to the Nobel Peace Museum. Immediately I felt a power in this place. The photos and displays of Nelson Mandela took my breath. I had always held Mandela in high regard; what he has been through and done is rousing. What an inspirational life. I lingered in this museum for over an hour.

I also made my way to the Norwegian Museum of Art where I spent a couple of hours. I was able to take photographs in the Nobel Museum, but not so here. Too bad because the art was amazing; The Scream is here. I lingered in this museum for well on two hours.

There was another museum in the mix, a modern art museum that had several displays I did not understand. One was about science fiction, primarily the space movies. Mainly it was a collection of movie memorabilia. The other collection was feminist art, and before I comment on this I apologize before hand to all my female friends. What I am about to note is not meant to disrespect women in any manner; I love you all – I really do, but I did not get this. First of all I think it was not displayed very well. There seemed to be no continuity nor theme to the curation of the works. In this museum no photography was allowed either, but that may not have been such a bad thing. I shall try to describe some of the displays. Well the one that capture my attention the most was the teepee made of bed sheets (complete with stains) that had at the top a sign that read “Fuck me, fuck you.” This one bothered me for reasons other than the feminism. There was also the 10x10 wall of pantyhose woven into strange patterns. Another interesting work was the rug of what I can only assume was pubic hair. There were also video works, one in particular had three young women standing nude in a kitchen; they would occasionally change positions slightly, but basically just stood in a kitchen. None of the displays in the entire collection had any kind of information to help the viewer understand or relate to the work, which I needed. Perhaps it is because I am a man, but sorry ladies, I just did not understand this collection.