COPENHAGEN CALLING - BIG DANES ON TOP OF THE WORLD

On April 19th 2016, the talk show formatted happening "Copenhagen Calling" took place in the offices of BIG with the above view. A gathering of some of the best creative minds Denmark has to offer to the world. Copenhagen Calling was a collaboration between The Alternative and Bjarke Ingels Group, with assistance and sponsorship of the snacks and wine by The Danish Consulate General in New York City. The weater was wonderful and the whole evening was bathed in sun and mindblowing views and perspectives.
( photo by Jesper Hyuk Larsen)

The very same evening, the New York Primaries was held, where the only hope left for USA - Bernie Sanders - was about to loose to Hillary Clinton. The room was filled to firecode limits and a undercover NYPD officer was in a corner with a visable firearm on his side. Mogens Lykketoft, was in the room and with the work he is currently undertaking at the United Nations, a personal security guy is part of it. 

In above clip, Mogens Lykketoft talks about Bernie Sanders, saying he could be a good President for the United States. And even if he does not  win, he has already influenced American politics and the future of the Democratic party.

New York was Feeling the Bern!

Copenhagen Calling was moderated by Canadian Peter Macleod and Danish Ambassador - Consul General for Denmark Anne Dorte Riggelsen in New York - in above photo taken by Jesper Hyuk Larsen.

The drawing behind her and above, is by Jesper Hyuk Larsen specially made for this New York Adventure.

Mogens Lykketoft - President of the UN Assembly, former party leader of The Social Democrats and former Speaker of the Danish Parliment.

Bjarke Ingels - Architect and creative mastermind behind Bjarke Ingels Group, who currently has several projects going on in New York City, and beyond.

Jacob Kampp Berliner - Serial entrepreneur, Record label Director and CEO of fashion brand Soulland.
Jacob is also in charge of the minimal and clever clothing style of his father, and recent nominated fashion icon Uffe Elbæk.

Nanna Fabricius A.K.A. Oh Land - former ballet dancer turned Pop Icon who has taken the world by storm with her carefully crafted pop tunes, that stick in your ears and mind. Nanna came with her newly born baby, who had his first outing in public.

Uffe Elbæk - Member of the Danish Parliment, former Minister of Culture and political leader of The Alternative. The Alternative is a generous, action-oriented international party with a special focus on serious sustainable transition, a new political culture and the entrepreneurial creative power of society and individuals. 

Jimmy Maymann - Executive Vice President and President of AOL Content and Consumer Brands, former boss at HuffPost. Legendary Danish entrepreneur, and hero to many Danish Business school student.
All of the above portraits by Jesper Hyuk Larsen

The theme for the talk with Jimmy and Bjarke, was how they had gotten so far in such short time. What is the drive? What are the most important to learn form the road there. What was the biggest failures?

Another perspective

The whole evening was directly shown LIVE on The Alternative's Facebook Page, mostly for the people back in Denmark who had better things to do. However, the whole event still can be seen as a facebook video HERE.

Jacob has 11 companies that he runs with various friends and collaborators.

Nanna talks about the need for passion and love for what one does in life. This is key.
To Nanna's left Peter Macleod  - co-moderator.

The question was - what is the future in your field? 

The audience was also great, with artists such as above New York local art activist Noah Fischer, video artist Jesper Just, musician Bubba from the duo My Bubba and in the long black hair Triangle Member and Occupy spokesperson Anup Desai.

The lady in Red and sun on the side of her face, is the dynamic New York Cultural Attache Maiken Tandgaard Derno. Another gracious donation came from Carlsberg, who made sure everyone attending would get a taste of Denmark, litterally. Sitting with the baby is artist and Nanna's husband Eske Kath.

The Danish Top Model Terese Pagh was also in attendance, together with Croatian New York based artist, magazine publisher, film maker and poet Anton Perich.

Bjarke insisted that in the middle of all the doom and gloom in the news and media, that we are in a good place in history, we just need to have big new thoughts to make a change. This after Uffe talked about the extreme weather conditions measured in the beginning of 2016, being the warmest in measured history.

Focus on what that can be done, not on what is wrong.

And here are Bjarke's words in a video, with answers by Mogens and Uffe.
There are also questions and comments from the audience including from Anup Desai, about Jante Law and his "Bullshit Detector".

When Uffe asked Mogens what he thought about his idea to start a new political party, he thought it was a bad idea!

Setting Sun



My Bubba is the duo of Swedish My Larsdotter and Icelandic Bubba Tomasdottir who ended the evening with their crisp and delicate sound. In above video they perform a song with claps and body drumming styles, kind of like Simon Garfunkle's song "Cecilia".

My Bubba takes you to their own universe, that could be Ingmar Bergman's Fårø. Their music could be the soundtrack to an updated version of Persona, where they sing and play the roles of the two women in symbiosis stuck on a sunny Swedish Island on a light summer nights dream.

Love was in the Air, and for the English version of the above book about The Alternative "Love is in the Air", several of the images in this blogpost will appear. Copenhagen will soon be Calling again, and plans for next years version is under development.

Thanks to Jesper Hyuk Larsen for all his wonderful photos in this post!

COPENHAGEN CALLING - A DANISH ALL STAR EVENT AT BIG IN NEW YORK

COP21 IN PARIS - THE FUTURE IS NOT WHAT WE THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE

ANTI COPS 21

The plans laid down in 2014, in collaboration with the Copenhagen French Embassy changed drastically.
The plan was to produce the CO2 Green Drive in the streets of Paris, with both Electric Cars and Bikes.
However, as we all know many things changed in Paris since the fall of 2014. Instead, we went to Paris together with The Alternative and its wonderful positive crew.



Once we know that it was not possible to produce the CO2 Green Drive, we started to focus on producing a large Intentional Meditation event. However, this was not allowed either, as it became illegal to gather in large crowds in the streets of Paris. In above video, we did create a small meditation, just before the police stormed the square.

In Copenhagen, we did produce a large Intentional Meditation event in Dome of Visions on November 29th, in connection to the official COP21 Parade, held worldwide. In above image by Jesper Hyuk, Josephine Fock from The Alternative is holding a speech in connection to the meditation session.



In Paris, there was all kind of manifestations. One of my personal favorites was the above Sufi Dance meditation.



Another one, was the various Bike Parades that were ongoing in the streets of the city.



And of course the Dancing Lady, that was a lovely puppet performance by a local artist.

Now history will only know if the COP21 conference was successful. In any case, it can only be more successful than COP15 in 2009, where theonly good thing that happened, was that the CO2 Green Drive was born.



This is the best video I have seen about COP21 so far!

POLITICAL LAB ABOUT ELECTRIC CARS

The first ever Political Laboratorium about Electric Cars was held on May 18th 2015 at Kattesunder 12, in the centre of Copenhagen City. 

The Alternative believes that together we can create much better political solutions than we do today. That is why we invite everyone both in Denmark and abroad to send questions, ideas and input for developing The Alternative’s political proposals.

The Alternative will generate policies together with citizens of all ages and in all parts of the country through events and workshops. We will focus on challenges, opportunities and good examples. Ideas will be gathered which can be developed into solid political proposals and serious sustainable scenarios for the future.

From the website of the new Danish Green Party "The Alternative", who hosted the day.

Per Jørgensen Møller from The Danish Electric Car Commite gave a presentation

The citizents and specialists was gathered around a table with a cup of coffee and colorful papers and pens.

Open Discussions and interaction

Kåre Albrechsen from Copenhagen Electric, the Region of Copenhagen Regions Electric Car Department.

John Krøll 

Please notice the screen of Kåre's PC showing images from the Guinness World Record that he was part of in September 2014.

Thomas Knudsen

More about that lovely memory HERE

Martin Messer Thomsen from EV TEST. One of Denmarks most knowable men when it comes to Electric Cars, the most optimal way of driving them and where new laws about Electric Cars can be implemented so it makes most possible sense for Denmark. To the left of Martin is Christian Poll who is the lead candidate for The Alternative within the areas of Green Technology and ECO living.

Jon Seemann Pedersen from The Alternative talked about Self Driving Cars and how it is key to also include this new element to the future of transportation.

Notes from a participant.

David Morrow 

Members of The United Danish Electric Car Owners was present

David Morrow 

The initiator of the event Jacob Fuglsang Mikkelsen is in the above image wearing a T - Shirt from the Guinness World Record attempt in September 2014. He is the current holder of the World Record in "Largest Parade of Electric Cars".

David Morrow 

The Future is Not What it Used to Be - The Electric DeLorean from New York, turned into artwork as part of The Alternative election campaign.

David Morrow 

There is no doubt that Nikola Tesla would have supported the Electric Car today. Allready over 100 years ago he had the solution for a Fossil Free Future. He is the Godfather of the CO2 Green Drive Project and should be canonized as a Green Saint.

Now we will see what the brainstorm will turn into in the official politics of The Alternative and later into Danish politics in the near future!

Thanks to David Morrow for joining us during the day and documenting the moment!

UPDATE:
After this POLAB was held, we sent out the working paper to several of our friends and partners. Not long after that, the Danish political party "Radikal Venstre" went out in the Danish media and announced several of the concepts and proposals we had come up with during the day. This including a "Green Licence plate" for electric cars. All we can say about this is that The Alternative is all for tranceparency and sharing, but we also like to get credit for the ideas, but we also like to say "You are Welcome!"

Read the announcement HERE