'8am, Everyday' A Print for La Banchina’s 10 Year Anniversary
- May 14
- 3 min read
To celebrate 10 years of La Banchina, three artists were invited to create limited edition artworks inspired by the place and the community around it.
Alongside works by Natascha Leth and Manon Kennedy, I was asked to interpret La Banchina through my own practice across photography and lino print.
At first, I imagined creating something expansive — the summer swims, wine glasses, oysters, the harbour, the sauna, crowded evenings and all the movement that has come to define La Banchina over the years.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised the spirit of La Banchina wasn’t something I could capture through spectacle.
It lived in the quieter rituals.
In the people who return everyday.
In familiarity.
In warmth.
So instead, I made a portrait of Gudrun.
If you know La Banchina, you probably know her already.
Every morning around 8am, Gudrun arrives and sits in the same seat inside the little blue house overlooking the water. Before opening hours. Before the rush. Before the city fully wakes up.
Table 4.
There’s even a small reserved sign for her seat.
She has a latte. A bun with cheese. The newspaper.
Over the years, she has quietly become part of the rhythm of the place itself. Staff know her. Locals gather around her in the mornings for coffee and conversation. New faces slowly become familiar ones through her presence.
She asks questions. She remembers people. She gives warm hugs. She tells the truth.
She even has her own button on the POS system.
And somehow, that says everything about La Banchina.
Not as a café or restaurant, but as a place where people genuinely know one another. A place where relationships build slowly over time through routine, warmth and presence rather than quick transactions.
I used to work at La Banchina myself, and over time I realised some of the most important moments there weren’t the loud or busy ones. They were the smaller rituals repeated everyday. Morning conversations before service begins. Watching the seasons change through the windows. Familiar faces arriving without needing to say much at all.
The print is based on a photograph I took many months ago during winter.
It was one of those quiet Copenhagen mornings where the light felt soft and suspended. Just me and Gudrun inside the blue house while the harbour rested quietly outside the window.
She was reading her newspaper exactly as she always does.
That image stayed with me.
The composition always reminded me slightly of Whistler's Mother — not visually in an exact sense, but emotionally.
The stillness.
The profile.
The quiet dignity of somebody completely at ease within a daily ritual.
There’s something timeless about watching someone exist so naturally in a place they belong.
When creating the lino print, I wasn’t interested in simply reproducing the photograph. I wanted to preserve the feeling of the moment instead — the quietness, the familiarity, the warmth of routine and the calm before the city begins moving.
Printed in “Banchina blue,” the work became less about documenting a place and more about documenting a feeling.
A feeling of belonging.
Later, when I shared the original photograph online, I wrote a small poem underneath it — something simple that tried to capture the feeling of Gudrun and the mornings she has quietly become part of.
a cold mornings warmth, a winter mornings sun, newspaper, latte & a bun, wrapped in layers, stories to share, 8am everyday, table 4’s reserved, that’s her chair, this isn’t anyone, this is lovely Gudrun,
The response surprised me.
Thousands of people connected with the image and poem online — not because it was dramatic or perfect, but because most people recognise what Gudrun represents.
Routine.
Warmth.
Presence.
Community.
A familiar face that quietly helps make a place feel alive.
And to me, that is what La Banchina has always done best.
Over the last 10 years, it has become many things to many people — a morning coffee spot, a harbour sauna, summer chaos with wine and sunburn, late winter dinners, cold water swims, conversations with strangers who slowly become familiar.
But some of its magic lives in the smaller moments.
A woman by the window.
8am.
Everyday.
The edition consists of 12 prints: (you can purchase at La Banchina only)
10 editions for sale
1 print gifted to Gudrun
1 print for La Banchina
Alongside my work, artists Natascha Leth and Manon Kennedy also created limited edition pieces interpreting La Banchina through their own artistic lenses — together forming a small collection celebrating 10 years of community, ritual and life around the harbour.
A small tribute to a place, and to the people who quietly become part of its soul.
Thank you Gudrun.
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