Education and New Interpretation
The Teachers’ College for the Promotion of Handicrafts still teaches students to sew Hedebo Embroidery. Greve Museum provides lesson material to the Danish Public School System, thus guaranteeing that today’s kids can try out their strengths with these historical embroideries. Hedebo Embroidery has been a kind of mediator between Danish folk culture and the corresponding folk cultures which Danes of a different ethnical heritage have brought to Denmark.Today’s Danish designers are still inspired by Hedebo Embroidery. We have examples of pottery and chairs which undoubtedly are inspired by “Udklipshedebo”. Textile designer, Jytte Harboesgaard, has renewed the expression of Hedebo Embroidery in works which were shown at Greve Museum. The museum’s Christmas tree of 2007 was decorated with Hedebo Embroidery ice crystals sewn by the museum’s study group. And these are just some of the fresh interpretations Greve Museum knows about.
Foreign Interest
Around the world women’s groups are sitting and stitching Danish Hedebo Embroidery. In 2000 an exhibition showing Hedebo Embroidery collars became the reason for textile designer Jytte Harboesgaard being invited to teach Hedebo Embroidery in New Zealand. In 2003 the Dutch magazine, Handwerken zonder Grenzen, wrote about Danish Hedebo Embroidery. The year after, a Japanese book on Danish Hedebo Embroidery was published, and the Japanese magazine Scandinavian Style visited Grave Museum and wrote about the museum and Hedebo Embroidery. In Kyoto, Japan the ”Yuki Pallis Museum” exhibits Danish Hedebo Embroidery.
Travelling Exhibition
Since its opening in 1988, Greve Museum has conducted research into Hedebo Embroidery from both a cultural history and a craftsmanship point of view. This has resulted in the presentation of new and old perspectives on Hedebo Embroidery in books, articles and exhibitions. The exhibition “Hedebo Embroidery – A World of Variations” fulfils the wish to continue the museum’s dissemination of this beautiful part of the cultural heritage of this region of Denmark. And at the same time we wish to give other museums in Denmark and abroad the opportunity to show their audience Hedebo Embroidery, which was once claimed to be the real Danish people’s art, inspired by a long European tradition of white embroidery.
