written and photos by: Rikke
In Denmark at the moment, you may notice something unusual in public spaces. Statues of women dressed in knitwear. Scarves wrapped carefully around marble shoulders. Woollen hats perched on bronze heads. Jumpers pulled gently over stone torsos.
It is not about covering women up.
It is about asking why so many of them were naked in the first place.
According to the first official mapping of art in public spaces by MAPS – Museum of Art in Public Spaces, Denmark has 1,538 statues. Of these, 854 depict men, while 519 depict women. Among those women, only 43 are named historical figures who made a documented impact. Meanwhile, 120 statues portray naked or partially naked women.
That contrast has sparked an important debate about female representation in public spaces. Women have always contributed to Denmark’s history, so why are so few of them standing fully clothed and fully credited on pedestals?
The Women We Should Be Seeing
Take, for example:
Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen (1863–1945)
A groundbreaking sculptor who in 1908 won the commission to create an equestrian statue of King Christian IX. She worked on the sculpture for nearly two decades, and it was finally unveiled in 1927 at Christiansborg Ridebane in Copenhagen. She became the first woman in the world to complete a major public equestrian statue. A woman sculpting a king on horseback. That alone deserves a pedestal.
Emilie Sannom (1886–1931)
One of the great stars of early Danish cinema. Between 1909 and the early 1920s she appeared in around 80 films, often performing her own dangerous stunts. As a child she spent several years in the United States after her family moved to Florida, before returning to Denmark. Later, she performed aerial acrobatics and parachute jumps at public airshows. In 1931, during a performance in front of thousands, her parachute failed to open. She died from the fall, cementing her reputation as one of Denmark’s most daring early performers.
Elise Sørensen (1903–2001)
A nurse who changed everyday life for ostomy patients worldwide. In the 1950s she developed the first disposable adhesive stoma bag after seeing how much her sister struggled with existing solutions. Working with what would later become Coloplast, her design restored dignity and mobility to patients globally. Practical innovation with enormous impact.
Copenhagen’s Public Statues
Many of these remarkable women have no public statues at all, and their stories are easily overlooked in Copenhagen’s streets. In 2019, a count of named public statues in Copenhagen showed there were 101 statues. Of these, 26 were animals and only 5 were women. Since then, statues of Karen Blixen were added in 2024, along with the Countess Danner monument later that year.
Despite the imbalance, there are a few important women you can see commemorated in the city today:
The statue of Queen Caroline Amalie of Augustenburg in Kongens Have was unveiled in 1896. It was among the first public monuments in Denmark to commemorate a woman in her own right. Caroline Amalie was known for her humanitarian work, including founding and supporting orphanages in Copenhagen and Odense. She is one of the oldest public statues of a woman in Denmark and a rare example of a socially engaged queen memorialised in bronze.
In April 2024, Copenhagen welcomed a new bronze statue of the celebrated author Karen Blixen on Sankt Annæ Plads, showing Blixen seated with a book in her lap. It is a quiet but powerful addition to the city’s monuments and highlights the growing attention to female representation in public art.
Later that year, the Countess Danner monument was unveiled near Sankt Jørgens Sø at the corner of Vester Søgade and Gyldenløvesgade. Created by Danish artist Kirsten Justesen, it honours Louise Christine Rasmussen, who became Countess Danner and dedicated her life to social reform and philanthropy in Copenhagen.
This conversation about representation is also sparking official action. In 2025, the Danish Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with Aalborg University, launched a public call for suggestions from citizens on which historical women should be honoured in public spaces. Through the portal borgerbidrag.dk, people across the country are invited to suggest women whose contributions deserve to be recognised with sculptures or monuments. Experts and historians will help guide these proposals, feeding into work to expand the canon of public art. These statues and initiatives give us glimpses of women who shaped public life from royalty and literature to social reform, yet even together they remain exceptions in the city’s landscape.
The Knitting Protest
This is where the yarn comes in.
Author Maren Uthaug has become the figurehead of what some are calling a knitting protest. People across Denmark are photographing naked female statues and sending the images to her Instagram, where she encourages knitters to take action by adding scarves, hats and sweaters to the sculptures.
It is not vandalism. It is commentary.
Not because Denmark is suddenly prudish. This is, after all, a country where tanning season reliably brings bare skin into public parks the moment the sun appears. The knitted garments are not about shame. They are about visibility.
By dressing the statues, the protest highlights the imbalance. It forces passersby to look twice. Statues that once blended quietly into the background suddenly demand attention.
And timing matters. January 2026 was the coldest January in sixteen years. February followed with temperatures dropping to minus 16.6 degrees on the night of Valentines. If nothing else, it feels only fair to provide these poor bronze women with hats and scarves.
But beneath the humour lies a sharper point.
More Than Anonymous Bodies
The goal is not to erase or destroy existing statues of women. The goal is to ask why so many female figures in public art are anonymous, idealised and unclothed, while men are far more often commemorated as named individuals recognised for achievements.
Public statues reflect collective memory. They tell us who mattered. Who led. Who invented. Who sacrificed. Who shaped our culture.
When men are remembered as thinkers, kings, artists and heroes, and women are remembered as bodies, it quietly shapes how we understand history.
At Copenhagen Free Walking Tours, we spend our days telling the story of this city. This conversation has made us look more closely at who gets remembered in bronze and who does not.
Perhaps the knitted scarves and woollen hats are not really about modesty or even warmth. Perhaps they are simply helping us notice what has been standing in front of us all along.
And once you notice, it is hard to unsee.
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