The National Museum is Denmark’s largest and oldest museum of cultural history. At the museum you can experience more than 14,000 years of Danish history, from the reindeer-hunters of the Ice Age, to the voyages of the Vikings, right down to the present day.
The Tranquebar Initiative
The BESTSELLER FUND is taking part in the Tranquebar Initiative at the National Museum, which is a research and restoration collaboration between the National Museum and a number of Indian and Danish institutions. The aim is to focus on Denmark's past as a colonial power in India and to explore the joint Danish-Indian heritage. This is done through several subprojects, with one common focal point, to the study the cultural encounters in Tranquebar - then and now.
The overall goal is to preserve and disseminate the joint Indo-Danish heritage in Tranquebar, by exploring historic data about Danish colonialism, from both a Danish and an Indian perspective. It is also a goal to relate the historical issues to the social and cultural living conditions of the present-day population.
The Tranquebar Initiative has the following goals:
1. To focus on the Danish colonies in India and their significance in Danish history in the 17th to 19 century, especially the interaction between Danish officials, soldiers, doctors, missionaries and merchants and various representatives of the Tamil community.
2. To participate in the preservation of the physical legacy of the Danish-Indian period, particularly the buildings in Tranquebar town and the surrounding gardens.
3. To launch a new ethnographic collection from Tranquebar for the National Museum and the Danish School Museum, providing the basis for future exhibitions.
4. To provide information about modern Tranquebar.
5. To create a network between individual researchers and institutions in Denmark, India and other relevant countries.
6. To strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration between individuals and institutions engaged in Tranquebar.
7. To create a model for future Danish collaborative research with non-European countries.
8. To communicate the results of the initiative to the public.
Read more about the Tranquebar Initiative here.