Genetic modification

Copenhagen is a strange sight in the early summer without visitors. Usually at this time of year the streets are crowded with tourists, the metro is sweating with passengers dragging bags on their way to and from the airport and the bars and restaurants are packed with punters enjoying the highest priced food and drink in the world! June 2020 is different.

Maybe the corona virus will genetically modify everything. Down in the harbour on the northern edge of the city centre there’s a very famous landmark: the Little Mermaid. Normally – whatever that means – visitors more or less climb on top of each other to get the best photo angles. But she’s largely being left on her own this summer, as there are almost no tourists!

Not far away, overlooking the terminal for the ferries to Oslo, is a new statue on a similar pile of rocks at the water’s edge. The genetically modified mermaid looks like this:

From a distance, with the UN City building and quayside

With the Oslo ferries in the background

Close up

She’s a creation of Bjørn Nørgaard and has been described as a Hans Christian Andersen figure for the postmodern world. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry on the sunny morning when I discovered her. The idea of gently mocking Copenhagen’s pride and joy is not bad. But at the same time, the idea of biotechnologically distorted bodies seems a bit menacing.

To round off the impressions of modification, it is very odd to stroll along the quayside at Langelinie with an unobstructed view towards the Swedish coast. Normally – that word again – there are several giant cruise ships tied up at the berths, disgorging passengers on day trips. But nobody would dream of boarding such a vessel in the time of a contagious virus.

So the quayside is abandoned, the shops and cafés are closed and the bus route into town has been diverted. Langelinie has mutated into a slightly ghostly monument to a form of tourism that may never recover from the pandemic. Since it has been estimated that the dirty bunker fuels used by the cruise ships accounted for over ten per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Copenhagen, it’s a relief to see them all gone and the city’s air much cleaner as a result! I watch the seagulls and contemplate altered future scenarios…