The artist behind the banknotes: Karin Birgitte Lund

Karin Birgitte Lund is the artist behind the new Danish banknote series. She was chosen from among the eight artists invited to submit draft proposals for the banknotes.

What did you think when you heard your proposals for the new Danish banknotes had been chosen?

I thought it was a truly amazing assignment. I really don't think I appreciated what a huge task it would be. Afterwards it hit me – when I'm paying for something at a shop checkout, for example – one day I'll be standing there with "my" banknotes. That's incredible to think about.

The theme proposed for the series of banknotes was bridges and landscapes in their immediate surroundings or details from those landscapes. What gave you the idea of linking bridges with prehistoric finds?

I wanted to link the bridges with the motifs on the other side of the banknotes in an interesting way, so I listed about 20 items that had something to do with the bridges and their neighbouring landscapes. But every time I started getting somewhere, I'd encounter a stumbling block and the idea wouldn't stretch to accommodate all the bridges. For a while I worked on the idea of fossils because interesting fossils had been found near two of the bridges – on Mors and Møn – but not near the other bridges, unfortunately. In the end, the only item left on the list was "prehistoric finds" and that encompassed all the bridges. It's also a subject that has interested me since childhood, so I really enjoyed the assignment. The symbolism is effective too: a link between the past and present, just as the bridges link the various parts of Denmark. Several of the prehistoric finds were probably made abroad and brought to Denmark, so that links Denmark to the rest of the world. And that's a lovely thought.

How did you work with the motifs?

I contacted the National Museum of Denmark, and they've been very helpful. Take the Skarpsalling Vessel, for instance. It had been packed away at the time I needed to work with it, but they got it out especially so I could see it. It was fantastic being allowed to see the vessel up close – it's very beautiful and rich in details. I've visited the bridges and their surroundings and taken lots of photos as the basis for my work. The landscapes in which the prehistoric finds are depicted are not always precisely where the objects themselves were actually found. They are more of a collage of impressions from the area where I cycled and hiked about, soaking up a sense of the landscape. When working on the Skarpsalling Vessel, I spent time exploring Oudrup Heath, which is an amazingly beautiful landscape dotted with the burial mounds that were the source of my inspiration.

What was it like working with banknotes?

Normally I work in large formats and make all the decisions myself. This time the format and the basic colour schemes were predetermined along with a number of security features to be incorporated into the banknotes. I worked together with a team of employees at Danmarks Nationalbank's Banknote Printing Works, where we figured out how to combine the artistic design with the relevant security considerations. We changed the original draft proposals in some respects during the process, e.g. the angle of the bridges and which bridges to feature on which banknotes, to ensure the designs were effective. For an artist like me, being involved in this kind of production process was very new and unusual, and I must admit that it was a new experience working with a print run in the millions.



Karin Birgitte Lund