46cut off my hair and pierced my nose
and other parts of my face. It was
my kind of punk phase. I was never
home. My parents respected my pri-
vacy, although I was a bit difficult to
deal with.
After high school, I returned to
Paris for a year. At 18, I saw an ex-
hibition by American artist Mark
Rothko. He paints these huge fields
of colour, his work is pure abstrac-
tion. I was so moved by it, almost
startled. It was the power of art. It
strengthened my resolve to enter
the curatorial field. At the time, my
older sister, Anga, lived in Paris.
Anga had moved away from home
in Jutland when I was three. She
had gone to Africa to build schools.
But during that year living in Paris,
she was also studying philosophy at
the Sorbonne. She took me to the
movies in Paris, just the two of us,
and showed me all these black-and-
white creations of the Marx broth-
ers. It wasn’t until I’d gone to uni-
versity that I felt I had something to
contribute in a conversation with
her. Today, Anga lives in Jutland
with her husband and daughter.
In my late teens, I became inter-
ested in Egyptology. I enrolled at the
University of Aarhus and studied
history because I thought Egyptol-
ogy would be too narrow. I studied
history for two years and loved it,
but I also realised that I didn’t want
to work professionally in history.
I didn’t want to do a PhD. I didn’t
want to teach. There was something
else pulling me. So, I switched to art
history, where I did a masters for an-
other seven years. So, in total, I was
at the University of Aarhus for nine
years. At the time, I was also work-
ing at the Aarhus Art Museum. I
started as a guide, and then as an as-
sistant. Before handing in my thesis,
I’d already been hired as a curator of
the museum.In 2012, I lost my mother Eliz-
abeth. She fought cancer for three
years. For a long time, I just couldn’t
conceive of her dying. It was more
a kind of self-deceit - there was a
lot of back and forth. I mean, she
got better, and then she got worse.
One day my father called and said,
“I think you need to come home.” I
was living in Copenhagen, while my
boyfriend (now my husband Simon)
lived in Aarhus. But when Simon
said, “You know, I think you should
come home now,” that’s when I
knew there wasn’t much time. Her
death changed something inside me.I knew I wouldn’t have her forever,
but I don’t think I ever imagined
that it would be just then and there.
Often with these things, it isn’t until
the end that you grasp their magni-
tude. She was the one I would call
when something good happened at
work because she was always inter-
ested in what I did. In 2012, all of a
sudden, I lost a part of me.
I hadn’t thought of having my
own family before. I didn’t care
much about children. But my moth-
er’s death changed that. I felt I
would be able to pass something of
her on to my children. My mother’s46 LETTERS FROM COPENHAGEN Portraitscut off my hair and pierced my nose
and other parts of my face. It was
my kind of punk phase. I was never
home. My parents respected my pri-
vacy, although I was a bit difficult to
deal with.
After high school, I returned to
Paris for a year. At 18, I saw an ex-
hibition by American artist Mark
Rothko. He paints these huge fields
of colour, his work is pure abstrac-
tion. I was so moved by it, almost
startled. It was the power of art. It
strengthened my resolve to enter
the curatorial field. At the time, my
older sister, Anga, lived in Paris.
Anga had moved away from home
in Jutland when I was three. She
had gone to Africa to build schools.
But during that year living in Paris,
she was also studying philosophy at
the Sorbonne. She took me to the
movies in Paris, just the two of us,
and showed me all these black-and-
white creations of the Marx broth-
ers. It wasn’t until I’d gone to uni-
versity that I felt I had something to
contribute in a conversation with
her. Today, Anga lives in Jutland
with her husband and daughter.
In my late teens, I became inter-
ested in Egyptology. I enrolled at the
University of Aarhus and studied
history because I thought Egyptol-
ogy would be too narrow. I studied
history for two years and loved it,
but I also realised that I didn’t want
to work professionally in history.
I didn’t want to do a PhD. I didn’t
want to teach. There was something
else pulling me. So, I switched to art
history, where I did a masters for an-
other seven years. So, in total, I was
at the University of Aarhus for nine
years. At the time, I was also work-
ing at the Aarhus Art Museum. I
started as a guide, and then as an as-
sistant. Before handing in my thesis,
I’d already been hired as a curator of
the museum.
In 2012, I lost my mother Eliz-
abeth. She fought cancer for three
years. For a long time, I just couldn’t
conceive of her dying. It was more
a kind of self-deceit - there was a
lot of back and forth. I mean, she
got better, and then she got worse.
One day my father called and said,
“I think you need to come home.” I
was living in Copenhagen, while my
boyfriend (now my husband Simon)
lived in Aarhus. But when Simon
said, “You know, I think you should
come home now,” that’s when I
knew there wasn’t much time. Her
death changed something inside me.I knew I wouldn’t have her forever,
but I don’t think I ever imagined
that it would be just then and there.
Often with these things, it isn’t until
the end that you grasp their magni-
tude. She was the one I would call
when something good happened at
work because she was always inter-
ested in what I did. In 2012, all of a
sudden, I lost a part of me.
I hadn’t thought of having my
own family before. I didn’t care
much about children. But my moth-
er’s death changed that. I felt I
would be able to pass something of
her on to my children. My mother’sLETTERS FROM COPENHAGEN Portraits