Spanish magazine Neo2 contacted me earlier this year and asked if I would take photographs of the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels for their May issue. I took the photos in the lofty offices of his architecture firm BIG in Sydhavn, Copenhagen. The idea was to capture him as he worked as well as show off the offices. And here they are.

More after the jump.
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My friend Lærke Bagger knitted these pieces for her final Bachelor project at the Danish Design School. Entitled ‘Through the Never’ and inspired by Metallica, they’re moody and tough and extravagant. We took these photos one evening in Kødbyen, Copenhagen.

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Copenhagen’s city lakes freeze almost every year. It took a little longer than usual, but the ice was finally thick enough this February for people to head out and skate.

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My sister married an Australian this September, so we decided to go visit his family over Christmas. I flew into Melbourne before driving down the Great Ocean Road to the foothills of Adelaide where we stayed in a colonial era house. Here are the photos.

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19-year-old Jelena Bundalovic questions whether the citizenship test is the best way to determine an individual’s ‘Danishness’

Jelena might have been born and lived her whole life in Denmark, but it brings her no closer to gaining Danish citizenship (Photo: Peter Stanners)

Almost a quarter of a million adults living in Denmark can’t vote in the upcoming election. Jelena Bundalovic is one of them. Born in Hvidovre Hospital, she went to Danish primary school at Ryparken Lilleskole and completed high school at Ørestad Gymnasium last year. Now 19 and living on her own in Nørrebro, this would the first election she could participate in. But she’s Serbian, and after failing the citizenship test last year, she cannot place an X next to her favourite candidate on Thursday.

“I’m a happy person but sometimes it makes me feel sad,” she told the Copenhagen Post on Blågårds Plads in Nørrebro last Sunday.

“Coming up to the election, everyone is talking about who they’re gong to vote for and I would like to be a part of it. I could watch the debates and meet the politicians around the city but I don’t need to because I can’t vote,” she said.

“I should be part of the democracy but I’m an outsider for no reason really.” Read the rest of this entry »

Two Danes hope to bring bicycle culture to Africa to tackle poverty and improve lives.

Baisikeli founders Henrik Smedegaard Mortensen and Niels Bonefeld (left and right) stand with their custom bicycle – built to withstand the harsh African climate – outside the new Baisikeli café and workshop by Dybøllsbro station (Photo: Peter Stanners)

Do you take the car, train or bicycle to work? We have so many options of getting from A to B that it’s hard to imagine that for many people walking is the only real option. And our own two legs can only take us so far.  In Africa, this is the reality for millions of people and, as a result, their ability to access health care, education and employment is severely limited, trapping them in cycles of poverty and ill health.

But Danish bicycle company Baisikeli – Swahili for bicycle – is hoping to change that. This October they are setting up a workshop in Mozambique to sell and repair second-hand Danish bicycles, as well as manufacture bicycles for the global market. They are a business – unsupported by the government or charities – that has already sent thousands of bicycles to the continent to help foster social change by creating a sustainable bicycle culture in Africa. Read the rest of this entry »

A clinic has opened in Copenhagen that will only treat illegal immigrants, formally known as undocumented migrants. I spoke to the manager of the clinic to find out more.

Vibeke Lenskjold from the Red Cross in Denmark runs the clinic. She believes only healthy people are in a condition to find their own way home (Photo: Peter Stanners)

Tucked away in the corner of a quiet courtyard off Revenstlowgade beside the central station is a private health clinic. Its clients aren’t wealthy or famous, but you still need to be special to be seen. The clinic only takes in people who – for whatever reason – are illegally resident in Denmark. In fact, it’s the only place in the country where they can be treated.

Vibeke Lenskjold from the Red Cross in Denmark, who runs the clinic, invited the Copenhagen Post to take a look around this Monday. Sitting in the reception of the clinic, she explained that while some politicians were outraged at the opening of a health clinic for illegal immigrants, all the Red Cross in Denmark cared about was that there were people who needed help but weren’t receiving it.

“It’s at the heart of what we do – humanitarian help for people in need. We don’t care who they are, if they need help they must have it,” Lenskjold said. Read the rest of this entry »

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While tens of thousands of young people descend on Roskilde Festival to get drunk, watch the occassional and perhaps pick up an STD, others come to make an easy buck – on can and bottle deposits.

Kenneth Okora came to Roskilde Festival to earn money on can and bottle deposits (Photo: Peter Stanners)

Under the punishing sun sit tens of thousands of young men and women in camping chairs and beneath white pavillions, whiling away the hours before the music starts on Thursday. There is a pervasive drone from hundreds of stereos powered by car batteries while kites float in the breezy summer heat.

But not everyone is here to bake their skin to leather and perforate their ear dreams while drinking themselves into a mesmeric stupor. There are plenty of opportunities to be had at the festival and some leave with more money in their pocket than when they first arrived.

They work tirelessly, moving purposefully between the camps searching for discarded bottles and cans each of which earns them a krone. But it’s not pocket change they’re after. Gathered outside the refund stands are queues of collectors with dozens of black bin bags stuffed to capacity patiently waiting their turn to deposit hundreds of cans at a time. Read the rest of this entry »

The right to speak one’s mind is normally defended as an ultimate right in Denmark. But two incidents in recent weeks illustrate that the urge to control what people say is still a temptation.

Most will remember that when protests broke out in 2005 over Jyllands-Posten newspaper’s publication of 12 drawings of the prophet Mohammed – including one with a bomb in his turban – politicians from across the political spectrum in Denmark staunchly defended the cartoonist and newspaper’s right to do so.

Even as Danish products were boycotted in Islamic countries, and its embassy in Damascus was torched, politicians argued that upholding this right was more important than bowing to pressure for the sake of security.

Among those politicians was Liberal MP Inger Støjberg, who stated on TV2 News in 2008, after the cartoons were published a second time, that: “I think it’s disgraceful that they are able to silence people with threats. I support the right of the Danish artists to express their freedom of speech.” Read the rest of this entry »

Entrepreneurs are discovering markets for the iconic Danish cargo bikes in the US and UK, though their cost and eccentricity factor are hard to overcome

American Will Kearnis, seen with his three-year-old son Kristian, was so taken by Christiania Bikes that he began exporting them to the US (Photo: Peter Stanners)

Cities across the world are looking to Copenhagen for inspiration on how to get their inhabitants out of cars and onto bikes – so much so that a new term has been coined for the trend, ‘Copenhagenisation’.

But even in cities that actively encourage cycling, the prevalence of self-powered transport is still mostly limited to the conventional two-wheeled variety. Cargo bikes, such as the Christiania, Trio or Nihola, are still a rarity outside Copenhagen despite offering a practical and relatively cheap alternative to a car for transporting people and cargo.

One American entrepreneur hopes to change that, however. Through his distribution company Boxcycles, Will Kearins has been selling the iconic Christiania bicycles in the United States for a year now, where they can be found in about 20 specialist bike stores across the country. Read the rest of this entry »