Photo Exhibition: The Local II – The Last Pubs in the Kingdom

This is where you can meet Danes you won’t find in many other places enjoying a beer in dimly lit pubs with rustic chairs and yellowing posters and plaques from times long past on the walls. The pubs here are like those in England, but then again not. The only thing you can get to eat are peanuts and crisps, and if you take your children along most people would think you should be reported to child welfare. Many old-style pubs are closing, but the exhibition at the Museum of Copenhagen gives voice to their bartenders and regulars. New photos show how people keep their spirits up and their glasses raised high despite the onslaught of property speculation and café lattes. The photo exhibition The Local II at the Museum of Copenhagen takes you on a tour of Denmark, but also all the way to the Faroe Islands and Greenland to experience the nooks and crannies of pubs everywhere in the kingdom.

Traditional Pub Culture from Denmark to the Faroe Islands and Greenland

The photography exhibition The Local II focusses on the shrinking number of local pubs. Bit by bit a refreshing pint of beer in a traditional pub is being replaced by cortado with oat milk at new sidewalk cafés, and the insignia of rockers by crop tops. In every corner of the kingdom local pubs are either being turned into something else or closing. Yet they remain an anchor in the lives of many, functioning as a welfare office and drop-in centre and providing a family and home for locals.

The exhibition visits some of the most classical local pubs in places like Sindal, Hadsten and Elsinore. The last section of the exhibition takes us all the way around the thirsty kingdom to Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The local pubs here are like the ones in Denmark – but then again not.

Ørestad’s Oldest Pub – from 2023

The story of local pubs is not only nostalgic. The exhibition also shows Copenhagen’s four new arrivals on the scene. One of them is the local pub Stamsted (‘The Local Pub’) in the new Copenhagen district Ørestad. It’s one of the city’s latest, but also Ørestad’s oldest – from 2023. It’s an old-style pub with everything you’d expect, just located in a new block of flats in a new part of town. How does the culture of the local look here? After that there are stories from local pubs on the outskirts of Copenhagen. Fidusen in Kastrup and Bamses Bodega in Ishøj takes us to the darkest corners of Greater Copenhagen’s watering holes. 

Welcome on a journey through Denmark’s local pub culture and a different side of the life of Denmark and the Danes.

The exhibition is based on the book Kongerigets Stamsteder (‘The Last Local Pubs in the Kingdom’) published by Salvador Books.

Museum of Copenhagen
Stormgade 18
DK-1555 Copenhagen V