“A hidden treasure from the museum's magazine now finds its relevance in a contemporary context”

I What I've never seen before, visual artist Camilla Berner is invited to enter into a dialogue with Willumsen and with Willumsen's Museum. Berner is one of the most prominent Danish visual artists on the current art scene. She has worked in the interdisciplinary field between science, botany, sociology and art for many years. Based on JF Willumsen's largely unknown herbarium, Berner's exhibition will unfold as an investigation of concepts about the fremmede og exotic. She gets very close to the fascination of what seems exotic, and how it has often stood and still stands in the way of seeing what is literally right at our feet – the close, ordinary, but perhaps also shameful nature.

Through Berner's new site-specific works, the study will unfold in three parts and in three different ways, displayed partly in an exhibition hall at the museum, partly out in the museum's park and partly at selected outdoor locations in the local area.

Willumsen's journey to America

In 1900, Willumsen went to New York in the hope of starting an international career in America. The encounter with the new and for him foreign world was overwhelming. He was fascinated by the bustling life of the big city, but also by the wild nature he encountered in the areas around New York, and he began collecting plants on a large scale.

In a letter dated June 23, 1900 to his friend Johan Rohde, he formulates his encounter with American nature as follows: "The forests contain a lot of plants, both trees and herbs, that I have never seen before. There is a multitude of variations here. I have begun to form a herbarium to help with art. The external impressions are so intrusive that the inner life must be silenced for the time being. He continues collecting plants during a stay in Switzerland on his way back to Denmark, and the plants are then collected in 14 large folders that are part of the museum's collection.

In Berner's hands, Willumsen's meeting with and collection of the fremmede nature now has renewed relevance and, through her artistic processing, contributes to a broader insight into the way we approach the nature around us. What do we notice? Why do we pay special attention to something and not something else? What is given special value? And what do we pass by unnoticed?

Foreign and exotic

Berner's works will revolve around how the gaze guides our journey through the world and how our cultural baggage can cause us to overlook absolutely essential elements. Berner, together with biologist Jon Feilberg, has reviewed Willumsen's herbarium and it has turned out that the species that Willumsen has collected are not actually that exotic. On the contrary, they are rather European species imported into the North American nature – also in the years when Willumsen sees and collects them. It fremmede og exotic, which Willumsen was met by, was thus not at all stranger or exotisk. However, for Willumsen – explorer, tourist, far from home and driven by a search for new things, it must have been perceived as such. Seen through his eyes, this nature has seemed stranger og exotic, and given rise to collection and special appreciation.

With a re-actualization of this exotic gaze, Berner will explore how we can once again create value in what grows around us, simply by becoming better at noticing it. By training our gaze to become better at discovering the magic and diversity in ordinary nature, we are also better equipped to create better conditions for its survival. Berner gets close to the plants. Very close, so that even the invisible interior, the root network and the microscopic pollen units come into view. Through Berner's artistic attention, a world of wild forms and surprising richness that exists right around us – every day, is now revealed.

Come into the engine room.

The indoor work is an installation, a closed space, the exterior of which appears as the back of some backdrop walls in raw, untreated wood. Inside the room, you are greeted by a classic museum room with display cases and dim lighting; here, Willumsen's herbarium is displayed as well as close-ups of selected herbarium leaves, where we can get very close to the otherwise small and sometimes microscopic or hidden plant parts. The herbarium is presented here as the heart and engine room for understanding everything else and shows an extremely gentle handling of the aesthetic qualities and peculiarities of the plants. The meaning and value of Willumsen's other artistic work is reversed. Now his inspiration material, which has been hidden away for 120 years, is allowed to come to light and acquires new value. In a printed flip copy in the exhibition hall, the audience can access the extensive herbarium of almost 400 entries.

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue, where the exhibition's themes are illuminated by perspective-giving texts from various fields of study.

In addition, all of Willumsen's herbarium sheets will be made available digitally, and they will also be included in an analogue leaf sample in the exhibition. This is material that has never before been shown to the public in its entirety. It is therefore a hidden treasure from the museum's magazine that now finds its relevance in a contemporary context.