{"id":1556,"date":"2026-05-28T13:34:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1556"},"modified":"2026-05-28T13:34:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:34:05","slug":"the-trolls-come-indoors-as-a-danish-recycling-artist-stages-his-first-museum-exhibit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1556","title":{"rendered":"The trolls come indoors as a Danish recycling artist stages his first museum exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>ISH\u00d8J, Denmark<\/strong> | For more than a decade, Danish recycling artist Thomas Dambo has scattered wooden troll sculptures around the world. He has created almost 200 in 19 countries.<\/p>\n<p>Now the poet and former hip-hop artist is bringing a collection of fairy tale-inspired creations in from the cold for his first museum exhibit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Garbage Man,\u201d at the Arken Museum of Contemporary Art on the outskirts of Copenhagen, tells the story of a group of mischievous trolls who secretly move into the museum, take it over and redesign it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey build and leave a giant human made of trash \u2026 as a lesson for the humans to behave better and don\u2019t put their trash where everybody else lives,\u201d Dambo said at his studio near the Danish capital.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The 46-year-old artist started spreading his trolls back in 2014, when he built two sculptures for a Danish music festival.<\/p>\n<p>Two years later, he hid six giant trolls in wooded areas around Copenhagen. The project went viral, drawing millions of viewers online.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was like, if I tell a story that combines them all, then when I\u2019ve done this (for) 10 years, I will probably have made over 100 sculptures and \u2026 I have made the world into my stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Twelve years on, Dambo has made almost 200. The artist and his team build about 25 new trolls annually. \u201cLong Leif,\u201d the tallest at 13 meters (43 feet) high, stands in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p>Usually, Dambo\u2019s work is as much treasure hunt as exhibit. His fairy-tale creations are tucked away in forests, mountains, jungles and grasslands around the world, discoverable using an online \u201cTroll Map.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is \u201cLittle Lisa\u201d hidden in a German forest, and \u201cHappy Kim\u201d lounging in a South Korean botanical garden.<\/p>\n<p>Children clamber and adults gasp as they find the trolls. Dambo estimates about 5 million people visit his works annually.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe sculptures bring people out to experience things that they would otherwise have been too lazy or maybe not creative enough to go and visit,\u201d he said. \u201cMy trolls, they bring people to all these small, little corners of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each of Dambo\u2019s trolls has a unique name and design. In the Arken exhibit, which opens Sunday and will be on show until Nov. 29, his new works are based on friends he had when growing up.<\/p>\n<p>They have \u201cpersonalities of a late teenage, young 20s type of group of boys that are causing havoc, and the type of gang that would break into a museum and fill it up with trash,\u201d Dambo said.<\/p>\n<p>Trolls often appear in Scandinavian folklore, but Dambo said he chose to work with the mythical creatures as a vehicle to convey messages on waste and recycling.<\/p>\n<p>The recycling artist\u2019s sculptures are made almost entirely from waste and discarded materials, such as wooden pallets, old furniture and whisky barrels.<\/p>\n<p>He said a museum exhibit means he can experiment with materials that wouldn\u2019t survive outdoors, including discarded electronics, cardboard and clothes, lots of them.<\/p>\n<p>In one corner, a troll named \u201cDyna Dee\u201d dozes on a 6-meter (nearly 20-foot) mound of discarded clothing from a local recycling organization.<\/p>\n<p>Dambo hopes museum visitors will leave with an urge to buy less.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not really about recycling, it\u2019s about you probably have enough clothes in your cabinet to wear for the rest of your life,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is not my recycling project, this is my stop buying stuff project.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1550\">Ohtani sparks Dodgers with a leadoff homer, leads 7 hitless innings in 4-1 win over Rockies<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1552\">Supreme Court settles water dispute over dwindling Rio Grande from Colorado to Texas<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1554\">Israel strikes Beirut southern suburb ahead of crucial Washington talks<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISH\u00d8J, Denmark | For more than a decade, Danish recycling artist Thomas Dambo has scattered wooden troll sculptures around the world. He has created almost 200 in 19 countries. Now the poet and former hip-hop artist is bringing a collection of fairy tale-inspired creations in from the cold for his first museum exhibit. \u201cThe Garbage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1101,1102,149,1103,1104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-0-no-apple-publish","category-1gridmagazine","category-a-town-magazine","category-uncategorized","category-z-other-galley"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The trolls come indoors as a Danish recycling artist stages his first museum exhibit - Denver Moving Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=1556\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The trolls come indoors as a Danish recycling artist stages his first museum exhibit - Denver Moving Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ISH\u00d8J, Denmark | For more than a decade, Danish recycling artist Thomas Dambo has scattered wooden troll sculptures around the world. 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