#JumpingJacks gets even flashier

A post written by Merete Sanderhoff, Curator and Senior Advisor at SMK, Statens Museum for Kunst, the national gallery of Denmark.

SMK loves Europeana. We share the same vision to inspire people everywhere to take an active part in art and culture and make it a vital part of their lives. As the National Gallery of Denmark, SMK are proud contributors to Europeana 280, the campaign that is encouraging people to explore Europe’s art heritage.

Our artworks are being put into new creative re-use – along with works from 13 other Danish museums, and institutions all over Europe. People have been able to enjoy our collections in #TheBigArtride, on Facebook, Daily Art and more. And at the upcoming SMK Friday 26 August, we’re featuring #JumpingJacks where you can make artworks come alive with your own body movements.



#JumpingJacks is an interactive installation developed by the Danish company Space & Time. It uses high quality images of public domain artworks shared in Europeana 280, a collection which features more than 280 diverse and unique artworks from all EU Member States, plus Norway.

Space & Time have created a fun and playful experience where you make figures - cut out from artworks - come alive. When you move your body in front of the installation, the figures wave their arms and legs accordingly and new combinations of body parts from different paintings appear. Check out what it looked like when #JumpingJacks was first launched in Vilnius earlier this year.

As an extra treat for visitors to SMK Friday, Space & Time have developed a special edition of #JumpingJacks based on two classics from the SMK collection – Jens Juel’s portrait of the Ryberg family and Constantin Hansen’s group portrait of Danish artists in Rome. This installation will take #JumpingJacks one step further. Here figures come alive within the context of the painting, so they move around immersed in their original surroundings, as you guide their movements with your own body.

SMK Fridays is a monthly event featuring a great blend of art, music, art talks, film screenings, drinks and street food served in an informal, friendly atmosphere. For the SMK Friday 26 August, we have teamed up with Cph Art Week whose theme this year is Open Gestures. This is mirrored in the SMK Friday program which is all about bodies moving and gesticulating. What better occasion to launch #JumpingJacks at SMK!

We are excited to be working once again with the great people from Space & Time (formerly Spild Af Tid) who did pioneer work on the Europeana Creative project which ended with a big celebration at SMK Friday in May 2015 under the headline Set Art Free!. Back then, their huge installation CultureCam took over our beautiful, vaulted gallery for the evening.

With #JumpingJacks we look forward to hosting the new iteration and we invite you all to get playing and jumping around with art!

So, see you at SMK Fridays 26 August 2016.