Tilde Strandbygaard Jessen

Tilde Strandbygaard Jessen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Communication, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen. Her work centers on museum practices, historical narratives, and sustainability communication within cultural institutions.

Her research focuses on how museums construct and communicate historical narratives, particularly examining Danish museums' utilization of selected pasts from the late 19th century to contemporary times. Key projects include analyzing visitor engagement at Frilandsmuseet regarding sustainability narratives and investigating how historical buildings are framed as 'ingenious' within modern environmental contexts. She has contributed to major initiatives including the national research program 'Our Museum' (2016-2021) and 'Where We Live' (2022-2025), with upcoming work on the 'Post-neutrality in Libraries, Archives, and Museums' project (2025-2027).

Her 12 recent publications reveal strong thematic concentration in sustainability communication within open-air museums, visitor perception studies, and critical heritage interpretation. The research demonstrates evolving focus from historical narrative construction (2017-2021) toward contemporary sustainability applications (2023-2025), with particular emphasis on Danish cultural institutions and experimental archaeology sites.

Professional activities include organizing seminars on emotional heritage with Laurajane Smith (2025), peer reviewing for Norsk museumstidsskrift, and conducting workshops on co-creating sustainability communication. Media engagements discuss museum evolution toward experiential visitor engagement ('Museer viser oplevelser frem for genstande', 2024) and the vitality of cultural history museums ('Det kulturhistoriske museum er blevet særdeles levende', 2019).