Scholarship holders
Scholarship holders September 2026
Architect Celeste Ulrikke Maffia Trolle
Waterworks in Rome The project investigates the presence of water in the city and how it shapes our experience of urban space and influences the city's atmosphere through its sensory qualities. By studying how water is staged differently in various types of urban space, I wish to examine its poetic and phenomenological potential in a city where water is an integrated part of the landscape. With a phenomenological starting point, I will investigate how form, materiality, and scale affect the experience of the movement and presence of water in the city and take a closer look at the tension between the monumental and the organic, the static and the ephemeral.
Architect Charlotte Schmidt
Brick as cultural heritage in a transitional era
During my stay at the Danish Institute in Rome, I am investigating brick as cultural heritage in a comparison between Danish and Roman building techniques and material culture. The project focuses on brick not only as a material, but as a bearer of intangible values linked to craftsmanship, maintenance culture, a sense of place and architectural quality. Through field studies of Roman brick buildings, I analyse how brick through use, repair and transformation achieve lasting cultural heritage value, and how these values can be brought into play in contemporary sustainability and conservation discussions. The project forms part of my master's thesis at NORDMAK (Nordic Master's in Architectural Heritage).
Visual artist Agnes Olivia Schyberg
Maybe It's Marbling
My work at the Danish Institute in Rome is based on marble as both a geological material and a cultural construction. I am investigating how the aesthetics of marble are reproduced in synthetic materials such as epoxy, quartz original pigment, and how the relationship between original and imitation shapes our understanding of the stone's value and materiality. During the stay, I will work with and document historical and contemporary imitation techniques in Rome, as well as reactivate an older method where silk thread, sand and oil are used to cut marble.
Visual artist Emma Liva Taarsted Bremerstent
The project is a collaboration between conservator Emma Liva Bremer stent former lighting designer Maja Arboe Harild. Rome constitutes a particularly relevant field of study due to the city's large concentration of historic buildings, within which spaces are created with a very special atmosphere. This atmosphere is created not least because of the refraction of light through glass originating from different periods of Italy's long tradition of glass production. During our stay, we will investigate historic glass and daylight openings in selected Roman buildings, where a complex interplay is found between glass and daylight and architecture. The project focuses on the meeting between the light's alternating cyclic-dynamic movements and the slow transformation of the glass, and how this interplay shapes the sensory character of the space.
Visual artist Kinga Bartis
During my stay in Rome, I will conduct research and gather inspiration for a public artwork to be realised in the summer of 2027. I have three sources of inspiration for my project: Roman frescoes, fountains, and Etruscan art in and around Rome. I will focus on the use of motifs and compositions and look at how they are incorporated into the architecture in order to achieve a spatial experience.
Visual artist Rachel Elizabeth Dagnall
I'm alone with my phone
Our project is that we have entered into a collaboration agreement with Professor Donatella
Ear at the University of Rome concerning access to the theatre group La Zettera Di Chaos Archive. The material will be used in our contribution to the programme Kilder Til Dansk Kunsthistorie by New York Carlsberg Foundation, which we are working on making into a publicly available archive of the composer Henning Christiansen's works during 2026. Henning Christiansen's work with La Zettera of Babel was particularly unique in his compositions and therefore of great importance to the creation of our contribution to sources for Danish art history.
Visual artist Thorbjørn Reuter Christiansen
I'm alone with my phone
Our project is that we have entered into a collaboration agreement with Professor Donatella
Ear at the University of Rome concerning access to the theatre group La Zettera Di Chaos Archive. The material will be used in our contribution to the programme Kilder Til Dansk Kunsthistorie by New York Carlsberg Foundation, which we are working on making into a publicly available archive of the composer Henning Christiansen's works during 2026. Henning Christiansen's work with La Zettera of Babel was particularly unique in his compositions and therefore of great importance to the creation of our contribution to sources for Danish art history.
Lecturer Edward Alan Payne
Riverbanks Roman world, 1606–16
I am currently writing a book for Reaktion Books' series Renaissance Lives entitled Jusepe of RiberaThe Rawness of Nature. Before the Spanish artist Ribera hurt himself permanently settling in Naples, he spent a decade in Rome (1606–16), which became a turning point for his art. During my stay, I will finish working on two chapters that examine Riverbanks meetings with the city's artistic and cultural environments. By placing the works in their local and material contexts the book gives new insights into Riverbanks artistic practice. Since the project takes its starting point in Riverbanks close connections to Rome, the study of relevant primary sources, works of art and archival material necessarily take place in Italy.
Lighting designer Maja Arboe Harild
The project is a collaboration between conservator Emma Liva Bremer stent former lighting designer Maja Arboe Harild. Rome constitutes a particularly relevant field of study due to the city's large concentration of historic buildings, within which spaces are created with a very special atmosphere. This atmosphere is created not least because of the refraction of light through glass originating from different periods of Italy's long tradition of glass production. During our stay, we will investigate historic glass and daylight openings in selected Roman buildings, where a complex interplay is found between glass and daylight and architecture. The project focuses on the meeting between the light's alternating cyclic-dynamic movements and the slow transformation of the glass, and how this interplay shapes the sensory character of the space.
PhD student Andreas Scheel Engelund
My research project investigates how the Catholic Church has historically understood investment as a moral action. Based in economic sociology, I analyse how concepts such responsibility, ownership and guilt – ideas that reach far beyond today's focus on profit optimisation – Historically, structured economic practices in the Catholic Church. This moral-historical approach forms basis for illuminating the church's contemporary engagement with issues of climate and social justice, where it has both developed moral frameworks for its own investments and functioned as a critic vote against financial institutions whose profit depends on the destruction of ecological and social systems.
Specialist student Louis Prip
Based on the small mountain village Acciano (AQ) I will investigate in this project why many Italian small towns in rural and mountainous areas are slowly becoming depopulated, and what is being done to counter and reverse the trend. If the trend cannot be reversed, what function will come the abandoned cities looked to have in the future, and what possibilities they open up for. I am especially fascinated by local cultural heritage, folklore and collective memory, and I want a special focus on how a city's distinctive identity, traditions and customs are maintained and preserved, when the locals are disappearing.
Incoming fellows October 2026
Architect Frederik Hedely Jansen
TESTUDO
TESTUDO is a housing typology study of the autonomous and controversial Roman Small apartment building.
The guy's historical friction and role as an investment object is particularly Interesting today, where Rome experiential sociocultural Enter as a result of the increasing commodification of the housing market. The study has a dual purpose: partly to revive Palazzinaen as a crucial housing type in Rome's modern urban development, partly to reinterpret the type in opposition to its speculative premises as a potential model for affordable social or cooperative housing in a contemporary context. The ambition is to distil a typological inventory of Palazzinaens architectural principles. TESTUDO is hereby not merely a local history study, but an attempt to deduce transferable principles for Palazzinaen as a general housing phenomenon. Regardless of the type's political and cultural implications the study seeks to identify spatial qualities and sets of rules that can to new connections.
Architect Mathilde Norsker
Whole and PayouN/Asandstone carvingftanything in Italian and Danish practice
As part of my own practice, restoration principles and practices are examined in connection with
restoration of Renaissance buildings in Rome. The present study focuses on the replaftning af sandstone in building facades and stems from concrete problemsyouglimpses from my daily work as conservation architect. Her syouAll upcoming restoration projects require clear choices regarding the shiftftdegree of completion, architectural expression as well as the long-term development of the facades and fatheryouning. The project has til purpose of strengthening my basis for decision-making and a shared insight into the field, through Inspirayouand knowledge from Italian restoration projects, where Renaissance architecture and restoration traditionyouOner has a long and nuanced background of experience.
Visual artist Andreas Tang Plousgaard
Visual artist Rebecca Mielonen Rothenborg
Conceptual measurement instruments
I am interested in the existential and human aspect of wanting to measure, categorise and divide world and is in the process of creating a series of works consisting of conceptual and abstract versions of various measuring instruments. The purpose of my stay at the Danish Institute in Rome is to investigate historical measuring instruments: Both their history, their construction, how they scientifically works, was used, as well as their visual expression. Through this knowledge I hope to become inspired in my work with my own sculptural, upcycled measuring instruments.
Visual artist Tora Agnete Schultz Larsen
A sculptural investigation based on the confessional as an architectural and narrative object – a piece of furniture where the body is both present and hidden, and the voice detached from the face, whilst silence and legs form part of the furniture's architecture. Unlike confession, the project also involves Pinocchio, whose growing nose reveals itself in silence. An exploration of woodcarvings along with the silent objects, the hidden things and the invisible positions.
Author Peter Barsøe Adolphsen
Yeshua ha-Nozri. En utopia. In counterfactual historical novel. Jesus of Nazareth did not
crucified, but imprisoned. After three years he is released and is received by Mariamne, his girlfriend, and their daughter, Tabitha. They settle on the Mediterranean coast and develop a new religion, Gaianism, a kind of tritheism based on Mother Earth, Father Sun and Sister Moon. They set sail on a mission journey that ends in Rome. Along the way, they have met the Roman general Vespasian, who - when he later becomes Emperor, does Gaianism to the Roman state religion.
Lecturer Edward Alan Payne
Riverbanks Roman world, 1606–16
I am currently writing a book for Reaktion Books' series Renaissance Lives entitled Jusepe of RiberaThe Rawness of Nature. Before the Spanish artist Ribera hurt himself permanently settling in Naples, he spent a decade in Rome (1606–16), which became a turning point for his art. During my stay, I will finish working on two chapters that examine Riverbanks meetings with the city's artistic and cultural environments. By placing the works in their local and material contexts the book gives new insights into Riverbanks artistic practice. Since the project takes its starting point in Riverbanks close connections to Rome, the study of relevant primary sources, works of art and archival material necessarily take place in Italy.
PhD student Andreas Scheel Engelund
My research project investigates how the Catholic Church has historically understood investment as a moral action. Based in economic sociology, I analyse how concepts such responsibility, ownership and guilt – ideas that reach far beyond today's focus on profit optimisation – Historically, structured economic practices in the Catholic Church. This moral-historical approach forms basis for illuminating the church's contemporary engagement with issues of climate and social justice, where it has both developed moral frameworks for its own investments and functioned as a critic vote against financial institutions whose profit depends on the destruction of ecological and social systems.
Postdoc Kasper Juel Petersen
I do research into mathematical modelling and simulation of ”complex” fluid systems, including liquid-liquid phase separation and transport of proteins in biological cells. I am especially interested in constructing models rooted in stochastic and kinetic equations to describe the physics and dynamics that define such systems. During my stay, I will consolidate my research from my latest postdoc fellowship and investigate possible
research collaborations with colleagues at Sapienza University of Rome.
Professor Mitchell Dean
Modern Italian political philosophy and power architectures
My research is situated within political philosophy and political sociology. I currently working with forms of power, political identity and politics formation in advanced mass democracies. I am particularly interested in non- rationalised elements of democratic politics, including acclamation practices, and both the practical and the 'glorious' aspects of sovereignty. These concerns put focus on how power operates through forms of public assembly. A central The empirical archive is thus the legacy of fascist architecture in Rome.
Specialist student Louis Prip
Based on the small mountain village Acciano (AQ) I will investigate in this project why many Italian small towns in rural and mountainous areas are slowly becoming depopulated, and what is being done to counter and reverse the trend. If the trend cannot be reversed, what function will come the abandoned cities looked to have in the future, and what possibilities they open up for. I am especially fascinated by local cultural heritage, folklore and collective memory, and I want a special focus on how a city's distinctive identity, traditions and customs are maintained and preserved, when the locals are disappearing.
Incoming fellows November 2026
Architect Laurits Evald Tingholm
The project investigates the landscape surrounding Cava Nenni, a former gravel pit south of Rome, where Robert Smithson created the work in 1969 Asphalt Rundown. The area represents a special meeting point of geological processes, industrial extraction and spontaneous ecologies, forming the starting point for an investigation into the relationship between material, landscape and cultural significance.
Through fieldwork in Cava Nenni and the surrounding areas, I will engage with the landscape as both a physical reality and a cultural sign. The residency includes investigations into the area's volcanic geology, historical use of materials, and pictorial traditions in Rome, which together contribute to an understanding of how landscape and city are shaped by parallel processes.
The investigations will form the basis for a film work, architectural material studies and a subsequent exhibition presentation.
Visual artist Elsa Mencagli
The body as earth, the earth as body
The project investigates the relationship between earth, climate care and femininity through an ecofeminist and practice-based reading of the Etruscan goddess Vei and the rituals that connected human practice with the cycles of the landscape in pre-Roman Italy. Vei represents earth, fertility and regenerating processes, and acts as an analytical and poetic prism for how Etruscan rituals structured relationships between human, time and landscape. The project reads these rituals as early ecologies of care, in which earth and body are understood as mutually interdependent.
The artistic method is practice-based and sensory. Ritual is used as a form of investigation through repetition, bodily grounding and contact with the earth, and is translated into performance, participatory actions and/or video performance.
Visual artist Malene Skaarup Jakobsen
The project Temporary Nodes investigating how architectural and sculptural layers can be translated into sculptural form through material-based processes. Starting from earth, concrete and In ornamentics I work with material shedding, entanglement and transfers between architecture and sculpture. In Rome, I want to study the city's accumulated layers of materials, constructions and craftsmanship and let direct, bodily experiences of buildings and ruins inform the work in the studio. The project developed through experiments and models and seeking to unite sculptural, architectural and craftsmanship thinking.
Author Mads Mygind
I want to write site-specific poems that take place in Rome, which I started during my latest staying in the city. And I am invited to visit Sapienza-the university with my poetry. I want to immerse dive into the city's literary heritage; visit museums, churches and libraries, and observe the city's overlooked details. It is a poetry that originates from where it is written. And designates, describes and challenges that place. Rome will therefore appear quite concretely in the poems. My poems will subsequently be sent for translation to Sapienza-university, so that the Danish-Italian cultural exchange will continue after my visit.
Researcher Anders Dahl Sørensen
A virtue out of necessity? Humility and the break with the ancient world
During my stay at the instituttand I have to work on a history of ideas book project about the the Christian virtue of 'humility' and its roots in ancient philosophy and society. The book, which is addressed to a non-specialist audience, will tell the story of how the old Greco-Roman ideal of ethical self-sufficiency during the fjthird and fifth century AD. gradually was displaced in favour of a focus on the recognition of the human being out of one's own weakness and afhanxiety. What role did existing social categories and
institutions – such as master-slave, groom-bride, nobility, imperial cult – in the development of ofttand new value sets? And how did the Christian thinkers of the period handle the challenge that humility, when it becomes a heroic feat in itself (as in desert fathers and saints) virgins), threatening to become a source of arrogance and pride in their own right? Late Antique Rome formed the setting for central episodes in the history of humilitias, and a key purpose of the stay at the institutettand is to become more familiar with the city's Christian history, archaeology and topography.
Professor Regin Schwaen
The Pantheon monument
It is unusual to find copies of the original drawings for the Pantheon monument in Rome. Even more unusual is that none exist discussion of the significance of the drawings. The first copy was measured by Antoine Desgodetz in 1682. These drawings, which are probably construction drawings for important building components were inscribed in the floor of the hypostyle hall immediately in front of the north-facing door to the rotunda.
Meghan's photographer Doubt and I would like to visit the Pantheon monument. We will gather material and knowledge for a new research article, as well as an exhibition and possibly a book. We wish to draw and measure the building or its elements and relations – not only in a scientific context, but also to photograph the columned hall and the rotunda at an artistic level that will take its starting point in the original construction drawings.
Performance artist Dorte Holbek
Cybele in the light of the fall and transformation of the patriarchy
Our relationship with God and creation myths reflect our relationships youand each other in nature. Cybele was goddess in Italy for nature, people and ”the others”. Her priests were queer and her Cult extrayouen. How did the worship of her look – what rituals, costumes, hymns and buildings youl her honour? And what happens to a cult when the god is a woman and the priests queer? What happens if we break into God's house, destroy the hierarchy old skiafter Good luck with Kybele?
Senior Lecturer Michael Asgaard Andersen
New housing forms for older people in Rome
The project investigates new forms of housing for older people in Rome, focusing on accommodation that provides care in new ways outside the private home and traditional care homes. Italy has one of Europe’s oldest populations, yet only around 2% of older people live in care homes. In Rome, this combination has driven the development of innovative housing solutions that are not newly built care homes, but rather the conversion of existing buildings into new care settings. During my stay, I will be conducting fieldwork across a range of different housing types. The project stems from my research into architecture and ageing at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and will expand this to include a comparative Southern European dimension.
Postdoc Kasper Juel Petersen
I do research into mathematical modelling and simulation of ”complex” fluid systems, including liquid-liquid phase separation and transport of proteins in biological cells. I am especially interested in constructing models rooted in stochastic and kinetic equations to describe the physics and dynamics that define such systems. During my stay, I will consolidate my research from my latest postdoc fellowship and investigate possible
research collaborations with colleagues at Sapienza University of Rome.
Professor Mitchell Dean
Modern Italian political philosophy and power architectures
My research is situated within political philosophy and political sociology. I currently working with forms of power, political identity and politics formation in advanced mass democracies. I am particularly interested in non- rationalised elements of democratic politics, including acclamation practices, and both the practical and the 'glorious' aspects of sovereignty. These concerns put focus on how power operates through forms of public assembly. A central The empirical archive is thus the legacy of fascist architecture in Rome.
Theologian Pia Søltoft
The gates of longing. A phenomenological study of existential longing
"The Gates of Longing is a book project which, based on the seven phrases that Jesus traditionally uttered on the cross, often called the seven last words, aims to describe the significance of longing for human life. Each of the seven last words is interpreted as a manifestation of a fundamental longing in human nature that can never or should not be satisfied, but expresses itself through our search for what we can know and what we must believe. The seven manifestations, which I call gates because they allow us a glimpse into the innermost part of humanity, consist of: 1. Our longing for meaning in suffering and contingency. 2. Our longing to give and receive forgiveness. 3. Our longing for eternity and the longing for happiness. 4. Our longing for surrender to something greater than ourselves. 5. Our longing for love. 6. Our longing for knowledge. 7. Our longing to feel at home in existence.
Incoming fellows December 2026
Architect Laurits Evald Tingholm
The project investigates the landscape surrounding Cava Nenni, a former gravel pit south of Rome, where Robert Smithson created the work in 1969 Asphalt Rundown. The area represents a special meeting point of geological processes, industrial extraction and spontaneous ecologies, forming the starting point for an investigation into the relationship between material, landscape and cultural significance.
Through fieldwork in Cava Nenni and the surrounding areas, I will engage with the landscape as both a physical reality and a cultural sign. The residency includes investigations into the area's volcanic geology, historical use of materials, and pictorial traditions in Rome, which together contribute to an understanding of how landscape and city are shaped by parallel processes.
The investigations will form the basis for a film work, architectural material studies and a subsequent exhibition presentation.
Visual artist Elsa Mencagli
The body as earth, the earth as body
The project investigates the relationship between earth, climate care and femininity through an ecofeminist and practice-based reading of the Etruscan goddess Vei and the rituals that connected human practice with the cycles of the landscape in pre-Roman Italy. Vei represents earth, fertility and regenerating processes, and acts as an analytical and poetic prism for how Etruscan rituals structured relationships between human, time and landscape. The project reads these rituals as early ecologies of care, in which earth and body are understood as mutually interdependent.
The artistic method is practice-based and sensory. Ritual is used as a form of investigation through repetition, bodily grounding and contact with the earth, and is translated into performance, participatory actions and/or video performance.
Visual artist Malene Skaarup Jakobsen
The project Temporary Nodes investigating how architectural and sculptural layers can be translated into sculptural form through material-based processes. Starting from earth, concrete and In ornamentics I work with material shedding, entanglement and transfers between architecture and sculpture. In Rome, I want to study the city's accumulated layers of materials, constructions and craftsmanship and let direct, bodily experiences of buildings and ruins inform the work in the studio. The project developed through experiments and models and seeking to unite sculptural, architectural and craftsmanship thinking.
Archaeologist Luna Carina Liv Christiansen
In search of Bona Dea – A study of the epithet Bona Dea in the Roman Empire
The stay in Rome gives me the opportunity to prepare a scientific article based on elements of my Master's thesis. The central subject of this thesis deals with the epithet Bona Dear, below, the relationship between the goddess's name, identity and function, as well as how these aspects relates to goddesses with varying degrees of assimilation. The thesis discusses it comprehensive epigraphic material associated Bona Goddesses and related goddesses viewed from both a spatial early temporal perspective to investigate how the nickname appears in a collection context. During my stay I look forward to visiting libraries and relevant archaeological parks, where Bona The worship of gods continues to be a subject of discussion.
Architect Christoffer Gert Nielsen
During my stay, I will investigate some of Italy's extraction landscapes. Landscapes that operationalised by an ever-changing raw material demand in urban centres. The study takes its point of departure in Trajan's Column, a war story about the pursuit of gold and silver in Antiquity Dacia, as a catalyst for a narrative of extraction society, Sacrifice Zones of precious minerals. Throughout my stay, I will visit as well as investigate various narratives, agents and entangled network in Italy's extraction history. Here I will delve into selected milestones in the extractive industries, which representatives of different eras of extraction, as well as how they have been and still are organising for the landscape. A mapping that will take place through various media; including photography, film, sound and records. The project is a forwarding following extensive research into eextraction landscapes and societies different places in Europe.
Professor Regin Schwaen
The Pantheon monument
It is unusual to find copies of the original drawings for the Pantheon monument in Rome. Even more unusual is that none exist discussion of the significance of the drawings. The first copy was measured by Antoine Desgodetz in 1682. These drawings, which are probably construction drawings for important building components were inscribed in the floor of the hypostyle hall immediately in front of the north-facing door to the rotunda.
Meghan's photographer Doubt and I would like to visit the Pantheon monument. We will gather material and knowledge for a new research article, as well as an exhibition and possibly a book. We wish to draw and measure the building or its elements and relations – not only in a scientific context, but also to photograph the columned hall and the rotunda at an artistic level that will take its starting point in the original construction drawings.
Visual artist Lisa Strömbeck
Collaboration with journalist, photographer and curator Irene Alison who lives and works in Rome, plus darkroom work.
Architect Alberte Thorning Agerskov
The project, Thick Time, investigating architectural transformations from polytheistic to Christian buildings through a spatial and artistic reading. The project investigates how different understandings of the world and cosmologies continues to coexist materially and spatially in the present. Based on the philosopher Isabelle Stengers’ understanding of cosmology and magic as ways of inhabiting the world, the Pantheon and Santa Francesca Romana are examined as places where different times overlap and infiltrate each other.
Thick Time foundations in a non-linear understanding of time, where the present is densified by intersecting material cultures, which continues to affect our bodily and sensory experiences. A form of palimpsest with its own activee agency, where the present is shaped by the very same past that it attempts to deny. Times merge and now the present is charged with the forces, obligations and potentials of both past and future.
Visual artist Niels Bonde
THE SWEPT FLOOR
An investigation of a mosaic located on Vatican Museums and a sketch there paraphrase the mosaic from approximately 200 years fvt. carried out in the genre "det ufejede floor" (Greek: unswept house). The documentation of the mosaic in Vatican Museums knife with photo and video. The sketches are produced as collages, drawings and perhaps video for a updated version, where the motifs incorporate modern waste; food packaging, flasks, tins, tubs, bags etc. The relevance and potential of the new plant as conceptual artwork, is public art as critique as opposed to affirmation and glossy picture.