FLUGT Refugee Museum of Denmark
The museum gives a voice and a face to refugees worldwide. It captures their universal challenges, emotions, drive, and stories. The personal stories put a face to the history and abstract numbers, and show the connection between the local history of Oksbøl and today’s refugee crisis.
The Challenge
FLUGT – Refugee Museum of Denmark, designed by a renowned architect and exhibition design agency, was inaugurated in the summer of 2022 by Queen Margrethe II. The new museum belongs to the museum group that is also behind TIRPITZ, the international tourist attraction in Blåvand (for which Tinker imagineers also designed the exhibitions). FLUGT is situated in Oksbøl on the west coast of Jutland. After World War II, the site of the museum housed the largest refugee camp for German civilians in Denmark. The challenge was to create the exhibitions inside the new museum (approx. 700 m2) and a concept for the storytelling in the former refugee camp, now a forest of 4.5 km2. FLUGT wanted to be the first museum in the world dedicated to refugees’ stories: both contemporary and historical.
Project Vision
The museum gives a voice and a face to refugees worldwide. It captures their universal challenges, emotions, drive, and stories. The personal stories put a face to the history and abstract numbers, and show the connection between the local history of Oksbøl and today’s refugee crisis. The search for refuge and the tensions that come with it are of all times, and it’s something that could happen to anyone.
Mike Bink
Mike Bink
Design + Execution
The museum experience consists of several exhibition rooms and a large outdoor area. The personal stories of the refugees are brought to life with visual highlights, soundscapes, animations, interviews, and original film material. Visitors experience what refugees had to deal with then and still have nowadays. They put themselves in the shoes of the refugees and get to know them.
Outside, a huge and notable model of the former camp, made of concrete and Corten Steel, indicates its scale. Here, visitors start an immersive audio walk through the forest. During their walk, they hear sounds and voices, experiencing history through the eyes of former camp refugees. This offers visitors a realistic experience of what daily life in the camp was like. The cemetery and an old barrack can be visited as well.
Mike Bink
Mike Bink
Mike Bink
Mike Bink
Mike Bink
Project Details
This all encompassing audio experience will make you think throughout your journey and incorporate bringing you into your own thoughts and into the shoes of refugees. The indoor and outdoor connection bring the space beyond a traditional museum and bring you to think about your experiences and surroundings and how they relate to the refugee.
This project was really powerful and the jurors loved it. As a field we should be moving toward a co-creation process with those who visit our designed experiences and take into account their past lived experiences. I think you did just that in this museum. The use of audio and stories of refugees made this experience really personal for each individual visitor. The graphics throughout the museum were vague enough that they were left to each individual visitor’s interpretation. They could imbue the images with meaning and imagination as they listened to the stories they were hearing. It also did a really nice job of taking you on a journey through the whole experience whether wandering the grounds or the interior of the former refugee camp.
A great example of experiential design and how to skillfully tackle a socially important and topical issue spatially in a museum exhibition. We have everything required for a good project: a connection with place (placemaking), showcasing the story of the past, with contemporary relevance, and nurturing hopes for an empathetic society.
Design Team
Erik Bär (principle in charge, art-director)
Nienke van den Berg (project manager)
Emmeline Nijsingh (content developer)
Paul van Houten (spatial designer)
Léon Wijnhoud (conceptual and graphic designer)
Marjolijn van Puffelen (spatial designer)
Denise de Korte (graphic designer)
Timo van der Horst (multimedia developer)
Collaborators
Tinker imagineers (exhibition design & audiovisual design)
Kloosterboer (set construction)
Stouenborg (hardware & showcontrol)
Shosho (av content)
YIPP (interactive table)
Rina van der Weij (art installation wireframe figures)
50lux (lighting design)
Big Orange (audio design)
Tonwelt (audio device)
Story Matters (copywriting audio stories)
BIG Bjarke Ingels Group (architect)
Photo Credits
Mike Bink (photography)
Joris Verleg (videography)
Open Date
June 2022