Adam Veng
I am is a Social Anthropologist from the University of Copenhagen, collaborating with Danish Common Housing company ‘AKB København’, administering 78 housing areas in Copenhagen. Through ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and participatory action research methods he focuses on how integral ideals of the Danish common housing movement such as ‘citizens democracy’, ‘participation’ and ‘engagement’ traverse from the housing company level over local housing areas to the daily lived experiences of tenants. In my work, I will develop methods for mapping the relationship between formal and informal tenant communities and collaborate with SUMO architect David Tapias in co-creating concrete architectonical prototypes with residents; both serving to develop innovative insights into the potentials of citizen-driving urban development from “below”.
Anne Corlin
Architect.
Assistant professor, Aarhus School of Architecture, Lab1: Transformation. Specialized in co-creational design processes and social sustainability in neighborhood and city development.
Cansu Naz Tekir
David Tapias Monné
Architect.
Lector, Aarhus School of Architecture, Lab 2: Teknologi, bygningskultur og bosætning. Specialized in prototyping processes of building design.
Eva Kramer Burchardt
Helene Buchhave Lind
I am an ethnologist with a master's in Modern Culture from the University of Copenhagen. I have worked with art in public spaces, urban development projects involving citizens, and social sustainability in architecture. Since August 2022 I have been based at the National Museum of Denmark where I work as a research assistant on the projects The Recycling Collective and The Co-Creative Museum.
Kristian Hoeck
Postdoc., National Museum of Denmark. Specialized in human-robot interaction and visual anthropology.
I am an anthropologist specialized in human-robot interaction, particularly with a view to Japanese humanoids and the modelling of a future society through affective and technical calibrations. In my work I focus on how the human come to figure through new technologies and how technologies and humans come to adapt to each other. In addition, I have worked extensively with visual anthropology both as a collaborative field method and as scientific mediation and presentation.
Mette My Madsen
Postdoc., National Museum of Denmark. Specialized in informal communities and the region of Denmark/Scandinavia.
I am an anthropologist specialized in the region of Denmark/Norden studying formal and informal social organization, inclusion-strategies, Velfærds-governing, friendship-formation, gender, aesthetics and knowledge epistemology. Also, I have done research in the crossfield between social coherence and individual life-strategies in both Japan and Denmark. I have longstanding experience in interdisciplinary and collaborative research beginning form doing my PhD within the large-scale Copenhagen Social Networks Studies, part of the UCPH Excellence Programme for Interdisciplinary Research.
Additional experience includes working for and with research-based consultancies, editorial work, knowledge dissemination in scientific and popular media and public talks, teaching and supervision as well as organization and coordination of international and interdisciplinary seminars and workshops.
Mikkel Heller
I am a Social Anthropologist from the University of Copenhagen, and hold a Master of Professional Communication from Roskilde University. I specialize in social technologies and digital communication, and have worked with co-creation processes, social entrepreneurship and project management in various NGOs. I work on several research projects in SUMO as project manager and research assistant, where I investigate art interventions, civic participation and cultural citizenship in vulnerable social housing estates. In addition to the research part, I am responsible for coordination and supervision of interns and volunteers in SUMO.
Mikkel Høghøj
I am a cultural historian specialized in 20th century Nordic and European urban-, planning- and welfare history. So far, I have worked on the history of social housing, urban planning and water to understand the historical connections between urban space and materiality, welfare and everyday life in urban Denmark. I have a PhD from Aarhus University and have been based at the National Museum of Denmark since 2021 where I work as a postdoc on the projects Flexible Communities and Entangled Fluid Cities.
Sarah Marlene Moesgaard Jagd
Research Development Team
James Holston
James Holston, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Social Apps Lab, UC Berkeley.
James Holston is a political anthropologist. His research focuses on the city as a strategic site for the emergence and erosion of citizenship, popular sovereignty, and democracy. His current work investigates new forms of direct democracy and the development of application software for democratic assembly. His published books, research articles, and software development engage these topics as critique and experiment. At the Social Apps Lab, he produces application software that addresses the terms and scales of democratic assembly, civic action, and urban knowledge. He has conducted extensive research in Brazil and is currently engaged in collaborative projects in Brazil, Denmark, Nicaragua, and the United States.
Morten Nielsen
I am a social anthropologist working in Mozambique, Scotland, USA and Denmark on socially sustainable urban development in a cultural historical perspective. And on stand-up comedy. Since November 2018 I have been based at the National Museum of Denmark where I am a research professor and head of the Research Center for Social Urban Modelling (SUMO).
Internal Advisory Board
Anne Haslund Hansen
Curator and Senior Researcher, Collection of Classical, Egyptian and Near Eastern Antiquities. I have experience with managing archaeological collections, exhibitions and archives. My research revolves around the history of museums, the history of scientific exploration, the history of disciplines, and reinterpretations of the past.
Mikkel Thelle
Mikkel Thelle is a cultural historian working with urban practice and public space, as director of Danish Center for Urban History, more recently combined with an interest in biosocial and environmental perspectives. He has been exploring how qualitative methods work together with new quantitative possibilities within Digital Humanities, researching for example relations between mobility and social topography. Recently, experiences and practices of welfare society has been more prevalent in his research, tracing biosocial becomings of modern citizenship. Mikkel is a senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark and guest professor at Malmö University.
Signe Lykke Littrup
Signe Lykke Littrup, Project & Development Lead, Curator at the Open Air Museum & The Collection of Historic Ships
PhD Performance Design & Museology, master of Philosophy and Art History, curator and project lead at The Open Air Museum /The National Museum of Denmark.
Through my work with dissemination of Cultural History and Mediation, I have become specialized in Exhibition Design, Visitor Experiences and Human-Technology relations, excited about working for Sustainable Developement and Climate Action.
Ulla Kjær
I am an art historian (dr.phil.) and a curator/senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark. My specialties are art and cultural history of the Danish churches, and art and culture in the time of the Danish monarchy. I am particularly fond of architectural history and wrote my dissertation on the French-born architect Nicolas-Henri Jardin, who as professor of architecture at the newly established Danish Academy of Arts 1755-71 and head of the Danish building administration introduced neoclassicism in Denmark. For the moment I am working with the project ‘Visions about buildings’, which examines the consequences of Danish building legislation from the 16th century to the present day - or in my case from the 16th century to around 1880.
Volunteers:
Mie Bøggild
I am trained as a photojournalist. At SUMO, I am the coordinator for all practical activities at SUMO SPACE, which is the center’s headquarters in Brede Værk. Here I am responsible for realizing all ongoing activities, workshops and seminars. In addition, I am involved in strengthening SUMO’s visual identity both at social media and platforms and also concretely in SUMO SPACE. To the center’s research and dissemination projects, the place and the narrative about SUMO SPACE are crucial in defining what SUMO is. In order to do this, I coordinate a taskforce, which continuously strengthen and tweak how we can use the building in the most optimal way.
Jonas Reventlow Petersen
Volunteer researcher at ‘Fleksible Fællesskaber’.
I am a master's student in Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Copenhagen. I have a focus on cultural evolution, with an additional interest in materialism, interdisciplinarity and theorizing across time and space. In addition, I have experience in archaeological consultancy work for exhibitions, but also in the digital world in the film industry and software development. Alongside my studies, I have worked with storage and databases at the National Museum of Denmark, where I solved various tasks on the VIP-project.
My work at SUMO is an archaeological research project that aims to investigate how materialism can express flexible communitites and materialistic agendas in public housing associations. The research project is based on an 'archaeological excavation' of Generationers Hus in Aarhus.
Interns:
(Current Interns)
Jens Ulrik Simonsen
Amanda
(Former Interns)
Camilo Andrés Montoya Pardo
Intern at “Det samskabende Museum and Kysset/Genbrugskollektivet
I am studying a Master in “Nordic Urban Planning Studies” at Roskilde University. I have a Bachelor in Political Science and International Relations from Bogotá, Colombia and a PhD in Political Science from Complutense University of Madrid. I have research experience and interest in exploring Community Planning approaches, participatory methods and civic society initiatives fostering inclusive and ecologically sustainable cities.
The project I am mostly involved in focuses on researching and designing innovative methods of involvement and co creation processes to attract the interest of underrepresented groups - especially the young - to cultural history and the museums´ experiences and activities. I have been involved in the design and implementation of resident’s workshops to foster dialogues with the communities and reach new audiences. In addition, I have been part of the creation of an Escape Room both as a new cultural experience for the young and as a research and experimental method for involvement.
Yaroslava Martynjuk
Intern at ‘Det samskabende museum’
I studied city planning and architecture in Ukraine. Currently, I study urban planning in Roskilde and Malmø. I focus on residents’ role in the city development. Specifically, I study how different types of communities contribute to the better life in the city and influence urban planning processes.
The project I am involved in focuses on museum attractiveness for the young residents of disadvantaged areas around Copenhagen. The goal of the project is to learn more about the life and interests of the youth in Høje Taastrup. Using this knowledge, we aim to inspire young people to explore cultural history in a new context and exhibition formats.
Cansu Naz Tekir
Volunteer researcher at ‘Kysset/Genbrugskollektivet’ and ‘Den samskabende museum’.
I have studied architecture in Istanbul, Turkey, and Public Art in Weimar, Germany. My projects deal with the relations between people and places and how we perceive our ever-changing surroundings.
At SUMO, I’ve produced visuals and graphics for the project ‘FællesSkabet,’ along with conducting workshops and interviews with the residents of the Taastrupgaard area. Currently, I’m working in ‘Den samskabende museum,’ where I continue communicating with the younger residents. We aim to attract and involve teenagers living in Høje Taastrup area in museums and cultural history.
Ida Hillebert Bay
I have a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and I am studying a master’s degree in Educational Anthropology (Pædagogisk Antropologi) at Aarhus University. This has given me experience with studying social processes through qualitative methods such as participant observation and interviews. I have been focusing my studies on, among other things, institutional theory, concepts of domesticity and family.
The interdisciplinary research and exhibition project ”Flexible Communities” (Fleksible Fællesskaber) investigates the relationship between social life and the built environment in Danish social housing estates. During my internship I carry out a fieldwork in the newer housing project the House of Generations (Generationernes Hus) at Aarhus Ø. I am interested in how residents of all ages are ”doing” different kinds of communities. Furthermore, I am interested in the interplay between the visions of the house, the current communities and the common and private areas of the house. These perspectives are a part of the ongoing process of developing physical prototypes of the common areas in The House of Generations.
Johannes Nira Uch
I am studying at my 9th semester at Roskilde University (RUC) where I have combined courses in communication, geography and urban planning. This combination has given me an interdisciplinary understanding of urban development and associated stakeholder networks. This is also linked to my own interests and experiences, examining cultural environments, the city’s operations and networks.
My project is based on the newer unique housing project Generationernes Hus (GH) in Aarhus. For this project I examine connection between the residents' group and the building's planned social activities. The purpose of the project is to investigate the wishes and needs of the different residents regarding an increasement of activity in the common areas of GH. Our research was made through several participatory observations, interviews and workshops with the different generations living at GH.
Francisca Calderon Franchi
I am an intern at “Fleksible Fællesskaber”. I studied architecture and arts in Chile and Milan and urbanism in Roskilde, Tromsø, and Malmø. Since I'm coming from south Chile, Patagonia, I focused on the buildings and settlements in extreme weather. Therefore, I've decided to come to Nordic countries to investigate new construction systems and analyse how design contributes to the wellness and quality of cities.
Simon Kristiansen
I am an intern at SUMOs research project Flexible Communities. I contribute to SUMO’s interdisciplinary framework with my bachelor’s degree in History and Sociology from Aarhus University and Háskóli Íslands. Furthermore, I am studying a master’s degree in Urban planning + Communication at Roskilde University. In relation to this, I have been focusing my studies on the social aspects of urban planning, such as: participation patterns, inclusion and opportunities for citizens in different urban milieus throughout modern history and contemporary examples.
Malou Ryborg
I have a bachelor’s degree in Philsophy from the University of Copenhagen and Universität Wien and I am currently studying for a Master’s in Cross-Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen. I was an intern at ‘Flexible Communities’ from March to June 2022, where I did fieldwork in a social housing complex in Esbjerg (Arbejdernes Boligforening Afd. 1).
During my internship, I made a spatial analysis of the common courtyard between the apartments. Based on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad, I made interviews with the residents, observed the physical use of the courtyard, and dived into both the history and the architectural drawings to get an idea of the intention behind the built space. I did this, cf. Lefevre’s spatial triad, to achieve an understanding of how the space was respectively lived, perceived, and conceived. In addition to this, I developed an interactive heat map through pictures taken by the residents of their favorite place in the courtyard, which ended up showing where the most activity took place within the yard.