Danish artist Thomas Dambo creates global troll hunt for his 100th masterpiece

A Danish* artist famous for his towering wooden trolls sent fans on a worldwide quest* Monday to find his latest creation.

Thomas Dambo has created a complex treasure hunt to find Moon Mother, his 100th troll sculpture, who he said has “crawled into the most secret spot in the forest” to give birth.

His giant figures inspired by Scandinavian folk tales* are often located off the beaten track to tempt children and adults to venture out into nature, and to show what you can do with recycled materials.

To find Moon Mother, fans will have to piece together codes placed near his existing trolls across the world.

“I decided to make a super secret one and make it an intricate treasure hunt that leads you around all the other ones I’ve made through the years,” Dambo told AFP.

His giant troll sculptures are dotted around the globe from a German forest to a South Korean mountain. But most are in the United States and his native Denmark.

The former graffiti artist and rapper dedicated* himself to epic “trolling” back in 2014, after making his first two trolls for a music festival.

His sculptures have been visited by about 10 million people, he said. Each is unique, with its own name, design and personality.

Not all are still standing — Hurricane Maria* in 2017 claimed a troll called Hector Protector in Puerto Rico.

“In all of Scandinavia, we have trolls in our mythology* and in our folklore*,” said Dambo of the ugly mythological creatures that are said to live under bridges.

“I grew up with many different fairy tales.”

Almost all of the Copenhagen-based artist’s trolls can be found using an online “Troll Map”. But fans looking for his latest will have to use QR codes placed on metal plaques next to his other 99 creations and enter them on the online map.

Once fans have found all the codes — something that will require collective* effort — a riddle will reveal the location of the new troll.

“It’s a little bit cryptical*, a little bit hard,” Dambo admitted.

Trash is a treasure

An AFP reporter was driven in a car with blacked-out windows to a secret location to see “Moon Mother” taking shape recently.

Members of Dambo’s team carefully attached long wooden branches to the six-metre-tall sculpture to create the troll’s flowing hair.

“We’re going for a wild, untamed hairstyle,” one worker smiled. Dambo went to extreme lengths to keep the site a secret, not telling his own team the exact location until the final stages and using different paths every day so as not to leave tracks.

His works are made almost entirely of recycled materials.

The face of Moon Mother, for instance, is made from oak scraps from a Danish flooring company.

“I like to build all my things out of trash because I think that trash is a treasure,” Dambo said.

He said he hoped his art “can be a part of the movement that shows people that trash is not disgusting and it’s not worthless.

“It’s something that has the value to bring thousands of people out to find it as a treasure.”

GLOSSARY

• Danish: relating to Denmark or its people or language
• quest: a long or arduous search for something
• folk tale: a story originating in popular culture, typically passed on by word of mouth
• dedicated: believing that an activity or idea is important and giving a lot of energy and time to it
• Hurricane Maria: Category 5 Hurricane that devastated northeastern Caribbean, particularly Dominica, Saint Croix, and Puerto Rico, in September 2017. It is regarded as the worst natural disaster in recorded history to affect those islands
• mythology: collection of myths or stories about a specific person, culture, religion, or any group with shared beliefs
• folklore: the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth
• collective: done by people acting as a group
• cryptical: having a secret or hidden meaning

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QUICK QUIZ

1. Who is Thomas Dambo?
2. Where did Dambo say his 100th troll Moon Mother crawled into to give birth?
3. How was Hector Protector destroyed?
4. What material are Dambo’s creations mostly made from?
5. How did the AFP reporter travel to see Moon Mother without learning of its location?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Create Your Own Treasure
“Trash is Treasure” states Thomas Dambo. Sketch, plan and create your own sculpture made entirely out of recycled materials. It could be a creature from a book, movie, or something to suit the environment you live in or a bit of magic you’d like to create.

It can be as small or big as you like. You will need to gather recycled materials from around the school, playground, or home, and turn trash into treasure.

Where might you display your masterpiece?

Time: allow 90 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: Design and Technologies, Visual Arts

2. Extension
Draw a rough map of Australia and put a picture of a character from a children’s book in each state or territory. Create a secret code to put on each character. Put all the codes together to find where you will find a mystery character (not on the map). Give to a classmate to solve your puzzle.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Geography, Personal and social, Critical and creative thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Read this!
A headline on an article – or a title on your text – should capture the attention of the audience, telling them to read this now. So choosing the perfect words for a headline or title is very important.

Create three new headlines for the events that took place in this article. Remember, what you write and how you write it will set the pace for the whole text, so make sure it matches.

Read out your headlines to a partner and discuss what the article will be about based on the headline you created. Discuss the tone and mood you set in just your few, short words. Does it do the article justice? Will it capture the audience’s attention the way you hoped? Would you want to read more?

Consider how a headline or title is similar to using short, sharp sentences throughout your text. They can be just as important as complex ones. Go through the last text you wrote and highlight any short, sharp sentences that capture the audience.