Project of the Month, March 2004

”The Virtual Cultural Journey” Project: A Round Trip in the Past of North Denmark  

All North Danish museums have joined forces to establish a common portal, www.kulturrejsen.dk, http://www.kulturrejsen.dk/, loaded with information on the culture and history of North Denmark 

By Naia Bang / Texthuset Aalborg
- The museums are really big knowledge centres. But only to a limited extent is the knowledge they possess available on their own Web sites. The aim of the project is to collect all this knowledge and make it accessible.
- These are the words of Thomas Østergaard, Cultural consultant of the County of North Jutland. He is the project lead of ”The Virtual Cultural Journey”, a project under the Digital North Denmark, which in turn makes part of a larger project called ”The Museums navigating through the Culture and History of North Denmark”.
The 1rst of March was the official opening day for the result og the project: A large scale portal, the http://www.kulturrejsen.dk/, accommodating a load of knowledge of events and places in the past of North Denmark.  

- We can boast a great cultural heritage in North Denmark. We are to attract people to experience it in our museums – and we can do that for example by offering an appetizer on the www.kulturrejsen.dk site, points out Thomas Østergaard, cultural consultant of the County of North Jutland.

All Museums Involved
- All the 29 museums in North Denmark – including the smallest - have contributed to the portal. Here is an opportunity to tell their stories. The portal is extended on an ongoing basis – with texts, animations, photos and illustrations, stories to be heard, small movie sequences and so on, explains Thomas Østergaard.
”The Virtual Cultural Journey” has been a large project to get running. We needed to establish a common platform – and all the players needed to agree on its design and appearance. Further, the museums needed to contribute with text, images et cetera, and it has been tremendously demanding on resources for all parties involved.  

Long-life Stories
- What is so special about North Denmark, asks Thomas Østergaard, and delivers the answer:
- We need some long-life stories – both for us who are living in North Denmark, for the newcomers and for the tourists who are visiting the region every year. There is a demand for authenticity – and the museums can deliver that. Using the portal we can render visitors an ”out-of-the-house-experience”, as it were. We will be able to demonstrate that the museums are capable of doing a lot of things, - and know a lot of things.
On the http://www.kulturrejsen.dk/ you can get stories about interesting epochs, and people and places in North Denmark - and you can search for special topics – runic stones for example. And the Web site will show a map of runic stones and their locations in North Denmark, and from here the visitor can access and read more about each place.

Going Out in the Cultural Landscape
- We need to attract people and introduce them to our cultural landscapes in the museums. We need to view the story in a wider perspective. And this is what we are trying to do with the www.kulturrejsen.dk website, explains Thomas Østergaard.
The idea is that school classes, families in North Denmark and others with an interest from their homes can zap their way around in the past of North Denmark using the Web-site. When they come across something interesting, thy can read more about it – and then move into the real world and experience it in the museums and in the landscape.
And if you encounter things of special interest, you can go home and read still more on the portal.
And the combination of images, texts, sounds, animations and movie clips makes this atttractive to most age groups.  

In the Elementary School of Tversted the third graders are out on a virtual discovery ín the intriguing past of North Denmark, thanks to the new cultural political portal, http://www.kulturrejsen.dk/.
Photos: Ajs Nielsen

Travel Books and Signposts
As mentioned, the ”Virtual Cultural Journey” is part of a larger project called ”The Museums Navigating through the Culture and History of North Denmark”. Together with the Digital North Denmark, the Ministry of Culture, various foundations and the EU have supported the project, which produced no less than four travel books last year:
Their English titles would go like: ”Archaeology and North Denmark”, ”The Sea and North Denmark”, ”Arts History and North Denmark”, and ”People and North Denmark”. They were overwhelmingly well received and were ripped away almost instantly.
- North Denmark is the first county in Denmark to produce such travel books, and the public interest tells us that this idea was viable, tells Thomas Østergaard.
And the project has procured the signposting to locations where Nature or History have a fascinating story to tell.  

The Portal Lives On
With the opening of the http://www.kulturrejsen.dk/ on the 1rst of March, the ”Virtual Cultural Journey” project was officially concluded. But the Web-site will live on. It has been transferred to the County Centre of Education, and in collaboration with the Board of Museums they should make sure that the portal is constantly growing and developing.
- I'm experiencing how thrilled people are about the result so I'm proud that it was successful. We are the first to gather cultural and historic attractions of an entire county in one site – and the Danish Tourist Board and the Ministry of Culture have been following the project with great interest, tells Thomas Østergaard.
And he has every reason to be proud: For ”The Museums Navigating through the Culture and History of North Denmark” project – including ”The Virtual Cultural Journey” – was nominated for the Prize of Danish Museums 2004!  

Visit the homepage: http://www.kulturrejsen.dk/. And read more about the project” on: www.thedigitalnorthdenmark.dk  

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