Task: Focus on the forgotten women in Danish history
In Copenhagen, there are five times as many statues of animals as there are of named women. How do we translate the debate on representation into action and make the prominent women of history visible in public spaces so that even more people can see themselves in history?
Solution: Put women on pedestals
A public space exhibition in one of the country's most central squares, a striking name change, and an extensive awareness campaign. With the royal government jubilee as an occasion, we created the '50 QUEENS' public space exhibition under Golden Days. Here, we erected 50 pedestals to celebrate the heroines of history right in the middle of 'Dronningens Nytorv' (The Queen's Square). A selected expert jury identified 49 women from Danish history, each of whom was assigned a pedestal. Simultaneously, one pedestal was left anonymous as an invitation to the public to contribute their suggestions to the campaign's overarching question: Who have we forgotten? The goal was to provide an action-oriented contribution to the debate on representation in the public space and to chart a new direction for the conversation on how to make women more visible—both in public spaces and in history.
Result: 525,000 attendees participated in the discussion about women's role in history
'50 QUEENS' and the effective takeover of 'Dronningens Nytorv' garnered international headlines and served as a catalyst for a renewed public debate about history's overlooked women. Over half a million visitors experienced the exhibition, and nearly 4,000 visitors contributed their suggestions for a woman they believed deserved to be honored with a pedestal on the campaign's website. The extensive list of public suggestions was sent to politicians at City Hall as an encouragement to erect more statues of women. The campaign resulted, among other things, in Copenhagen's Lord Mayor, Sophie Hæstorp Andersen (S), becoming aware of the issue, after which she posted a lengthy message on Facebook about the gender distribution among the city hall's statues.
In addition to massive national coverage, the story of '50 QUEENS' gained international attention with mentions in Bloomberg, The Times, and Monocle, as well as through Reuters, AFP, Associated Press, and China's largest news agency, Xinhua—with a total reach of 291 million people worldwide.
The campaign's enormous impact was celebrated with numerous international awards, including a Cannes Lions shortlist, silver for Spatial Design at D&AD in London, bronze and two merits in Brand Installations at The One Show in New York, bronze in Creative Campaigns at the Danish Digital Awards, and five gold awards and one bronze at Creative Circle, where Golden Days was also named Client of the Year.
