Culture Night 2025

Discover hidden treasures from our collections when The Black Diamond – Royal Danish Library opens its doors to an evening full of surprises. Hear Mikael Bertelsen talk about Det Sidste Ord (The Last Word), experience musicians giving new life to old audio recordings from the Danish Folklore Archive and try your hand at computer games – both old and brand new from the collection.

Experience a very special light installation in the Library Garden, explore The Old Reading Room or see how comics are preserved. Perhaps you would rather read a play with others, explore a selection of old websites from Netarkivet's catalogue or revisit the last decades in DR-arkivet. You can also take the children to the Kirkeby Bridge, where they can become part of a large collective work or get up close to the preservation work and all the many strange things that are found in private collections.

In other words, you should look forward to experiencing everything you didn't know we had.

Mikael Bertelsen and Det Sidste Ord (The Last Word)

The portrait series Det Sidste Ord (The Last Word), in which great Danish personalities appear in public for the last time after their death, is a collaboration between Mikael Bertelsen, TV 2 and Royal Danish Library.

This evening you will get a unique insight into the programme when host Mikael Bertelsen talks about the thoughts behind the groundbreaking television format, the work that precedes the breathtaking meetings in the studio, and not least the place of the broadcasts in the collections at Royal Danish Library.
For the rest of the evening, the Queen's Hall will be the setting for a series of screenings of Det Sidste Ord (The Last Word).

Light art in the Library Garden

Experience the artist collaborative Båll and Brand's light installation "Cirkler af Erindring" (Circles of Memory) on the facade of Royal Danish Library in the Library Garden. It consists of four unique installations that connect the Danish War Museum, Royal Danish Library, the Danish Jewish Museum and the Danish Parliament together in time, storytelling, memory and identity - and one unified, magnificent light installation.

The work consists of organic materials from Royal Danish Library's collection – such as parchment, leather, paper and gold foil – captured in glass discs that create unique facade projections.

Try computer games from the collection

Computer games are cultural heritage and an important part of Royal Danish Library's collection, and in the collection we ensure the preservation of computer games - also on historical consoles. Visit the game station and try out fun and different computer games. You can also try the brand new game WHAT THE CLASH? from the Danish game producer Triband and try out the new MUS' TOOLBOX or REAL VAMPIRES produced by Those Eyes.

Musicians give new life to old audio recordings

In the atrium under the enormous mirror ball you can enjoy the music from Border Country; a concert experience where music meets historical film and sound in a sensual interplay.

The music is created and performed by Emil de Waal, Gustaf Ljunggren, Kaspar Vig and Band Ane, while old documentary recordings from the 1890s to the 1950s are processed and transformed into a living visual narrative by Kaspar Vig and VJ Harley Nanfeld Foged. The recordings are supplemented by archive material from Royal Danish Library's collections.

The result is a magnificent echo through time, where images, voices and music meet across borders.

Enter the world of drama and theatre

Get a taste of what the Theatre Collection has to offer when we, together with Dramatikkens Hus (The Norwegian Centre for New Playwriting), do fun guided readings every hour, where you can try to play a role. We read together Abelone Koppel and Johanne Petrine Reynberg from Dramatikkens Hus and bring the text to life together. You can also just join in as a listener. Everyone is welcome – just bring a phone with internet access.

As part of the project 'Danmarks Dramatiske DNA' (Denmark's Dramatic DNA), Royal Danish Library is digitising 18,000 plays from 1748 to the present day, which have so far only been available in reading rooms. The project is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation and the Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation.

Preservation of cultural heritage: Cartoons, hair clippings and other quirky things from the archives

One of Royal Danish Library's most important tasks is to preserve our cultural heritage. But how exactly do you do that? As a special treat, this evening you can look over the shoulder of some of our most skilled conservators as they repair, among other things, old comics. You can also see some of the quirky things that are hidden in the private collections we receive – including receipts, hair clippings and dried flowers.

Creative workshop for children: Put your mark on the great collaborative work

A giant scroll with mysterious drawings and secret words. Children and their adults can help create it at the Kirkeby Bridge during Culture Night. In the basement under The Black Diamond you will find the historic Ripley's Scroll from the 15th century, which is part of the exhibition Between Heaven and Earth – and this evening we will create our own collaborative work inspired by the old alchemical manuscript.

Explore Netarkivet

Are you curious about what websites looked like in the 90s? And whether MySpace, social media, MP3 files and dynamic Flash websites are archived among the 1400 TB of data and 48 billion objects that Netarkivet consists of?
Then come by the catalogue room, where skilled employees will show you the possibilities of the Netarkivet, based on a musical educational journey - from the early Danish internet to the present day.

Bend and stretch for a gymnastics break from DR-arkivet

Would you like to find Children's Hour from your childhood, travel back in time with the TV news through the years or see Jørgen de Mylius again in Melodi Grand Prix? Then explore DR-arkivet and help us find all the DR cultural treasures that have informed, entertained and bound us together as a nation over the years.

In the first version of the archive, you can explore the last 20 years of TV news and thousands of radio broadcasts. When the archive is complete, it will contain radio from the 1930s, TV from the 1950s and will be continuously updated with new broadcasts day by day.

We'll give you a taste of what's in store for you when we bring gymnastics breaks in the Atrium several times during the evening and lead the exercises. Because as they said in the 1930s: Den der ranker sig – slanker sig (He who stretches himself - slims himself).

Free admission to The Black Diamond's exhibitions

For Culture Night you can visit all exhibitions in The Black Diamond for free.

In Between Heaven and Earth you enter a magical world where humans have sought answers for centuries. Explore rare sorcery books, alchemical writings, occult photographs, ritual objects and the workshop of the witch Dannie Druehyld.