SMK in Sølvgade in Copenhagen is an excellent frame for the art collection of the Danish people. But not everybody has easy acces to the physical museum and when you visit the building – and if you see all the artworks on display – you’ll only have experienced 0.7% of the entire collection.

This means there’s an enormous potential in digitizing and making available the collection in digital form. Many works are in the Public Domain and may therefore be used freely. The digital versions obviously can’t replace the original artworks but they can

• Be accessed independently of time and space
• Be re-used for new work
• Be studied in minute details
• Be shared
• Be inserted in everything from books to research articles to school papers
• Be printed on anything from posters to couch cushions

With support from Nordea-fonden the SMK Open project (2016-2020) aims to make the country’s art collection available for free use. Everyone should have the opportunity to explore the world of art on their own terms and draw information from SMK’s large collection of knowledge and additional material. With SMK Open, we’re turning the collection into a giant tool-box full of freely usable building blocks.

The project builds on a vision of making art available and relevant for far more Danes by turning it into a resource and tool that one may bring into one’s own life and use on one’s own terms.

All over the world, museums are digitizing and sharing their collections freely to accommodate the cultural user of today and tomorrow. A cultural user not satisfied with being a passive spectator to culture.

This cultural user wants to be an active participant and to use culture in his or her own life. And the conclusion is clear: Far more – including those who don’t use the physical museum – use the collections when they can actively select, re-use, remix, and share artworks.

These initiatives collectively go under the headings of open access and open data – or the more specific #openglam (where GLAM stands for Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums).

Initially around 40.000 of the artworks in the Public Domain will be made available with photos, 15.000 in a quality that makes them useful for all kinds of purposes: books, teaching materials, blog, Wikipedia entries, film and tv productions, decoration of your living room – your imagination is the limit.

Through SMK Open, every artwork gets its own digital page which also contains video, articles, audio productions, x-rays and information on upcoming events and exhibitions involving the work.

Additionally, we’re making all digital material available through a so-called API, an interface to the museum’s data. Through this API, interested parties can include SMK data directly in their own services or systems (websites, apps etc.).