Eye for landscape
The landscape is a living archive
Opening January 24, 2026, Eye for Landscape is a new exhibition that explores the many different kinds of interactions between people and nature, place and technology that exist in landscapes. An exhibition curated in collaboration with cultural geographer Emmy Laura Pérez Fjalland
Spot the stories of the landscape
Curated in collaboration with cultural geographer Emmy Laura Pérez Fjalland, the exhibition explores how people have lived in, used and shaped landscapes through time. Through materials, narratives and sensory approaches, the exhibition shows the interplay between people, nature, place and technology – and the complex stories hidden in meadows, forests, fields and water
A changing local exhibition
In the exhibition, the stories are not hidden behind glass and display cases: Natural materials are collected in the landscape all year round and the audience is invited to touch, smell, immerse themselves and explore everything. Eye for Landscape is a changing exhibition that evolves with the changing seasons and through the audience’s participation in workshops and events, where new layers are added, the audience themselves help shape the content of Eye for Landscape.
The exhibition is created from materials collected locally in North Zealand: The wood that the furniture is made of comes from Gribskov, and in a special sound work you can hear bird sounds recorded in Esrum.
The importance of landscape in a contemporary debate
Landscapes are full of stories. People have lived here for thousands of years and are deeply entangled in nature. People have inhabited and adapted lives and landscapes in different ways. Landscapes are thus a kind of living archive – an archive that can teach us about all kinds of interactions between people and nature, place and technology.
Landscape stories are rarely simple. But they can be both useful and inspiring at a time when man’s role in nature is under scrutiny. Recognizing the landscapes we live in and their complex stories has therefore rarely been more important.
The exhibition Eye for Landscape highlights some of the landscape stories you can experience and explore in Esrum’s damp meadows and wooded hills, with a particular focus on the time since the arrival of the monks. Come along through the open countryside, the forest edge, the forest, the agriculture and the fresh water.
The audience creates the exhibition
Like the landscape outside, the spaces in Eye for Landscape are in motion. Materials are continuously collected and harvested in the area around Esrum and processed locally, so the exhibition is constantly changing.
Here you can use your senses. You can touch, smell and examine the materials. You can immerse yourself in the books, take your time at the windows and let your gaze wander between exhibition and landscape.
Around the desks you will find inspiration cards with sensory activities that you can take with you – home or outside the monastery. Out into what it’s all about: the nature around us and our shared landscapes.
The exhibition also evolves through ongoing workshops and events where new layers are added and where you help build and renew the content of Eye for Landscape over time.
Curated by cultural geographer
Emmy Laura Pérez Fjalland holds a PhD in Geography and Planning and currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at Fuglsang Art Museum and Landscape Architecture & Planning at the University of Copenhagen.
Since 2020, she has written the weekly newsletter Jordbo in collaboration with Føljeton and is behind a number of critically acclaimed publications, including En ledsager i uregerlige tider (2021), Almanak: En bevægelse gennem årets landskaber (2023) and Haverne i haven ved fjorden (2024).
She has just published A Topography: A Thousand Years in the Landscape around Esrum Monastery, published by Esrum Kloster & Møllegård with support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The book is designed by Mads C. Sandholm and Laura Silke.
Eye for landscape is supported by Augustinus Fonden, Knud Højgaards Fond and Nationalpark Kongernes Nordsjælland.
