Charlotte’s most recent project was the creation of the Storm20 makerspace in the ground floor of the Copenhagen History & Art offices in central Copenhagen. It is a warm, welcoming place — intimate but open — drenched with sun during the long Nordic winter and a welcome haven for ice cream during hot summer days. I always loved the fact that it was both a place to make and to socialize, with a little coffee house and shop up front.
Whenever I visited Storm20 there were a mix of tourists and locals; colorful bits of knitting, glue, electronics and fabric everywhere; and always photocopies, books, and notes about a half-made project going on — usually something connecting the past to the present through your hands.
Storm20 was created, as a sign in the workshop says, as a “historic maker space”, a place where you could “learn about the city of Copenhagen by participating in activities and workshops.” One of the first times I visited they were working on a project to reconstruct knitted work gloves found in the excavations for Copenhagen’s new subway line. One of the gloves, a mitten really, was unearthed and discovered to have two thumbs (!) and the Storm20 knitters were making reconstructions from the archaeological documentation to figure out why. All of the gloves were gorgeous, fascinating to touch and behold, and the point was clearly made: What one knows in one’s hands really matters; One can learn about the past — live it, feel it — by making something now; History belongs to, and is within reach of, all of us.
