SMK - Statens Museum for Kunst

The characters in Carl Bloch’s ‘From a Roman Osteria’ may not look pleased to be interrupted in the middle of supper, but don’t let that fool you. Recently, SMK had the opportunity of having this and a number of other works digitized for later use in our very own version of the app Second Canvas by Madpixel [link no longer active].

Carl Bloch’s ‘From a Roman Osteria’ under close examination.

What curator and tireless open access fighter Merete Sanderhoff is holding here, is nothing less than the Danish Open Data Award 2018.

The first Danish Open Data Award is presented 2 March 2018 at the IT University of Copenhagen

Open data are gaining ground all over the world, including Denmark. In the last couple of years, many museums, archives and libraries have provided open access to digitised cultural heritage, and government bodies like The Danish Geodata Agency have released their data to free public use. This is opening up new powerful opportunities for citizens to engage with, study, repurpose and remix large sets of high quality trustworthy data collected by public institutions over many years.

How can we use our cultural heritage, when it’s available for free in a digital format?

A big part of SMK’s collection is in Public Domain and can thus be used freely as raw material in new artistic contexts without the permission from the museum or anyone else.