Art exhibition ”Lieber Feind/Dear enemy”

Until the end of 2023, you can experience artworks by Birgit Bjerre and Alex Mørch in the Documentation Center and in the museum bunker under the collective title "Lieber Feind / Kære fjende". 
 
The theme of the exhibition is the meeting between people during the occupation in Northwest Jutland across nationality and hostility. 
 
The starting point for Birgit Bjerre's works is the stories she has been told by her father, Christian Bjerre. During the occupation, Christian was a big boy who lived in Vigsø near Hanstholm. 
 
The father's stories show how contradictory and complex the locals' relationship with the soldiers from the occupying forces was. Christian drove with turf to the German constructions, and he bought cigarettes of the soldiers. When he saw the beautiful uniforms of the German soldiers, he was ashamed of his own, simple clothes. At the same time, he was vandalizing their telephone lines in the evening, and he peed in the beers he sold to the soldiers. The thought of the possible consequences of his actions against the occupying power made him so insecure that he felt he needed a weapon to protect himself. Therefore, he put together a handgun, which consisted of the barrel of a Danish saloon gun and a German flare gun. It was not a deadly weapon, but the awareness of its existence seemed reassuring - along the way, parts of the gun had been stored in a beehive. 
 
Birgit has translated these, and other stories, into works in a wide variety of materials, including beeswax and moths. 
 
Alex Mørch's works can be seen in the museum bunker. These are two installations of raw iron plates, which occasionally emit disturbing, rumbling noises in the corridors of the bunker.