00:02
Marie Foegh
I picked Modigliani's painting of Alice, a girl.

00:06
Marie Foegh
That was the first painting I got attracted to when I was 18-years-old, and left the little village in Southern Jutland for Copenhagen for medical school.

00:18
Marie Foegh
I hadn't seen it before. It was simplistic and I thought it was elegant. You could see her moods, and then I opened my eyes for Modigliani.

00:31
Marie Foegh
And in spite of all his women having the same thing, elongated faces and almond eyes, you could see the difference, you could feel the difference.

00:41
Marie Foegh
The muted colors. He could have used Matisse-like colors, but no. You can't really put him in a box of "ism." I like people who can't be put in a certain box. That's what attracts me to Alice.

01:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today our guest is Marie Foegh, a Danish scientist and gynecologist, who specializes in hormone treatment. Welcome, Marie.

01:27
Marie Foegh
Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.

01:30
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's very nice having you. I know that you are based in both Copenhagen and New York. Where are you at the moment and would you describe the location that you're at to the listeners?

01:41
Marie Foegh
Yes, that may come as a surprise for you because three weeks ago I left New York behind after being there for many, many years, more than 20, and moved to Miami. So I'm in a totally new location. Been here three weeks, but not really been here very much. I've been traveling because of my clinic in Copenhagen and because of vacation time. I'm trying to figure out if I like Miami or not.

02:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What made you decide to move to Florida?

02:10
Marie Foegh
I thought about it for some years. So I said, okay, why not try something new? So here I am.

02:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And if you wouldn't mind describing the room that you're in, I see a lot of colorful artwork behind you. Tulips, I believe they are, in different colors, and a newspaper clipping or something. Where are you and what is behind you?

02:30
Marie Foegh
Yes, I'm in my living room in my apartment in Miami. And the painting behind me is actually a painting of my late husband and myself at the time we lived in Washington D.C., done by an artist in something called the Torpedo Factory, which is known to many in D.C.

02:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm surprised that you moved to Miami, but I do want to talk to you still about New York because you lived there for a long time. Which part of New York did you stay in? And what made you feel at home in New York initially?

03:03
Marie Foegh
I lived in Midtown Manhattan, down the east side, next to the United Nations building in, actually, a Trump World Tower. It may be unknown for Danes that Trump was making buildings, apartments, and they all had a stamp on it. Then times changed but the apartments didn't change.

03:23
Marie Foegh
So that was a lovely location. You could walk across town to Broadway and to all the restaurants. And I loved that you had the choice. In an evening you feel like going to the theater and you go to Broadway and find a ticket for one of the shows. And it's always good because the actors are great, the dancers are great, and you get uplifted. It has the best opera in the world, I think.

03:47
Marie Foegh
So that's what I loved about it and still love about it. And I may say that I've actually moved to Miami also for weaning myself a little bit off of all the culture in New York before my next move, because this is not my last move, which will be to Europe. I don't know where in Europe yet.

04:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You had a clinic in New York and now I'm unsure if you still have it, where you specialize in helping women who are going through menopause with hormone treatment. And we will return to that a little bit. But I want to ask you about how your relationship to New York started and how your relationship to the US in general started.

04:27
Marie Foegh
I've always had a love affair with big cities, even when I was a child growing up. I dreamt of moving to the big city Copenhagen, growing up in a small village in Southern Jutland.

04:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Not that big compared to New York.

04:41
Marie Foegh
No, not at all. But when you come from a small village in Southern Jutland, Copenhagen was big at the time. And why have I been attracted to big cities? I think there are several reasons, but the main reason is there's always life around you. And secondly, the offer from the art world is always bigger. The bigger the city, the better the art.

05:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You were only supposed to stay two years in the US, but it was too interesting what was going on, to leave. What was it that was so interesting that you decided to stay?

05:15
Marie Foegh
It was the science and the ease with which you could do science in the US compared to, for example, in Denmark or Europe. One thing that impressed me as a young scientist is that I could call on the phone the big names, even Nobel winners and ask them questions and they answer your phone and take you seriously. That would be very difficult in Europe. That requires a lot of introductions before you reach the big guy or girl.

05:48
Marie Foegh
So that was attractive. Funding was easier. It's always difficult but easier. And then when I had done my two years of research, I got a great offer to be, which I couldn't resist, the director of the kidney transplant program at Georgetown University Hospital.

06:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
In Washington, D.C., right?

06:09
Marie Foegh
In Washington, D.C. That was in the young days of organ transplantation. Very fascinating times, and I couldn't resist. I thought, going back to gynecology, obstetrics, it's a little bleak compared to a novel thing like organ transplantation.

06:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And how did you end up in the US to begin with?

06:28
Marie Foegh
I was in academia in Copenhagen, in academic medicine. It was customary that you went abroad for two years and focused on research. The traditional places were the UK or US, and I got an offer in the US at Georgetown University Hospital in D.C.

06:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Great. Let's go back in time a little bit. You graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1969. What made you decide to study medicine? And today there are more women than men studying medicine in Denmark. What was it like in the early '70s?

07:04
Marie Foegh
In the early '70s, there were very few women compared to men. Most of the medical students were men. And what made me decide, even today, I'm not sure, because I was in my last year in high school and didn't really know what I wanted to do. Then one morning I woke up and found out, oh yeah, I want to study medicine.

07:24
Marie Foegh
Don't ask me why. But the rest of my life, I've had it like that. Don't know what it is. I guess my brain is working over time. I just wake up with clarity.

07:35
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Incredible.

07:36
Marie Foegh
At that time you had to have Latin for getting into medical school and I had not had Latin because when that was offered, I said, I don't need it, I'm not going to study medicine. Changed. Changed. So, and that is my nature. And then I do what's needed. I took my Latin exam before I started medical school.

07:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's interesting that you had to study Latin to become a doctor.

08:00
Marie Foegh
That was those days.

08:02
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, I can imagine that. What were your favorite subjects at the university and did you immediately decide that you were going to focus on women's health?

08:11
Marie Foegh
The focus on women's health came much later. I was just fascinated by everything you could learn in medical school. Every day you knew more. That was a wonderful feeling. And so no, I had not decided until I did my residency program in Denmark. It was a two year program that I decided I actually liked this field, which I guess more have to do with your mentor than the field. Your mentor makes it interesting.

08:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I know. And how much focus was there on women's health during your time as a student?

08:47
Marie Foegh
Nearly just as little as today.

08:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Which means very little.

08:52
Marie Foegh
Yes. You had gynecology, you had obstetrics, the usual things from the usual teaching about the diseases. I do remember, I think that's an interesting thing. At the time I was a medical student, there was a professor of psychiatry at the Rigs Hospital (Rigshospitalet) in Denmark, and he said that men's and women's brains were different. He got fired for that.

09:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How did he say they were different?

09:17
Marie Foegh
That was from his dealing with patients. He felt that men and women acted differently. But that was a no-no at the time. And so, in retrospect, it's interesting he got validated later on when we started being able to look in the brain and see the different parts of it and what's going on. And that's all due to hormones, by the way, most of it.

09:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What else? What else is it due to?

09:46
Marie Foegh
I guess some of it is the environment.

09:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah. And culture, probably also.

09:51
Marie Foegh
Yeah. Yeah.

09:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You grew up in Sønderborg in Jutland. What were your dreams for the future when you were a little girl? Did you dream of a career abroad, for instance? I know you didn't dream about becoming a doctor.

10:03
Marie Foegh
No, I was dreaming of becoming a ballerina.

10:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh!

10:06
Marie Foegh
And got pretty far. And my parents stopped me. They thought it would be not a good life. They worried that I would make it to the top — the only reason I'm forgiving them. They stopped me from dancing ballet, actually. My younger sibling was allowed to continue dancing ballet because they knew she wasn't the one who could make it — in ballet. She made it otherwise, but not in ballet.

10:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So they were worried you would become professional. You were too good. And did you dream of going abroad?

10:38
Marie Foegh
I mean, becoming a ballerina is being worldwide. The world I knew, I didn't know so much about the Asian world, I knew more of the Western world. We only started having TV at that time when I was a child.

10:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's interesting to think about. You are a mature woman. We should tell the listeners you're in your 80s, even though the voice and your energy doesn't seem like it, that is the case.

11:01
Marie Foegh
Thanks to hormones.

11:02
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thanks to hormones. We'll get back to that later. I'm very interested in that. Today you have a clinic in both New York and Copenhagen. I am assuming you still have a clinic in the US. I touched upon what you do, but would you elaborate on the kind of work that you do for women at your clinics?

11:21
Marie Foegh
Yes. Because of my whole career, I know much more about hormones than most people, both estrogen and also testosterone, and know the effects and the problems you get if you don't have enough of the hormone or have it in the right way. So even in the US where we have much better knowledge about hormones and menopause than many other places, there are many gynecologists here also, who don't know it in depth.

11:53
Marie Foegh
And in depth requires that you have done a lot of research, both basic and clinical, which I have done. So I seem to be able to help people, women, who even if they're started on hormones, it doesn't really help them. And that's because of a lack of knowledge of the treating gynecologist.

12:13
Marie Foegh
They don't know that the many symptoms of menopause, perimenopause, requires higher hormone treatment than you normally use for hot flashes. And that it matters how you give the hormone, whether it's orally or a patch or gel. It matters for the patient.

12:33
Marie Foegh
What happens is that women, those in perimenopause, menopause, give up their work. They can't work. They can't work because they get brain fog. They can't remember, they get tired. It's a fatigue that you can't overcome with sleep. On top of that, you don't sleep, and then you'll get tired of that too. So all these combinations of things make women stop in the midst of their career, and some even get misdiagnosed, even with pre-dementia.

13:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What are the differences between your two clinics? What are the differences and the similarities between your Danish and American patients, if any at all?

13:14
Marie Foegh
There is a major difference. In Denmark, most of the patients are told, don't use hormones, you get breast cancer. You can only use it for five years. Are you sure you really need it for your hot flashes and a little bit of moodiness? So most women, when they get that message from a physician, they step back and say, okay, maybe I shouldn't.

13:39
Marie Foegh
In the US, they don't get that message. If you want hormones, you can get it. You have to sign a 40-page document that you won't sue me for breast cancer. And you're made aware there is a slight increased risk.

13:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's a normal thing in the US.

13:57
Marie Foegh
Yeah. Yes. You sign so many things. Yeah. Because it's pretty uniform in Denmark, I guess because it's a small country, it's easier to get a uniform message out. And in Denmark, physicians are more trusting of authorities than we are in the US. We are the opposite in the US.

14:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Is there also a difference in knowledge that the women come with when they come to your clinics in Denmark and the US?

14:24
Marie Foegh
I would say, not more today, because most women in that age group, they are on social media and searching the internet for information. So there they gain the information. They just get insecure in Denmark about if it's correct or not, because they hear the opposite from their physician.

14:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What are the differences between the attitude towards your research in Denmark and the US, for instance? Is there any difference, the reaction to your scientific work?

14:54
Marie Foegh
In Denmark, there is, again, a uniform attitude. It's dangerous, what she is doing. Does she know what she is doing? In the US, of course, there are all kinds of opinions. So I'm not the only one with the opinion I have. So you don't get the same — would you call it? — bad talking about you and your knowledge. You don't.

15:17
Marie Foegh
But that's also another major difference. In the US, we do defensive medicine. I have to make sure that the patients don't have different diseases. In Denmark, I have a different approach: let's try and see what estrogen will do for you, and okay, that was estrogen deficiency. What's left? That we will then look into.

15:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Would you say that there's a movement in terms of the interest in menopause and treating women experiencing it? Or does it just seem to be the case for me because it's relevant for me as a woman who is 54 years old? Is there a movement?

15:55
Marie Foegh
Yes, there seems to be a movement, but will the movement move the authorities? That's a big thing because if it doesn't, it'll be a movement to nowhere. But I think it'll come in Denmark because what's happened in the US with the new Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, he has decided that women have been mistreated over the last 22 years because we have denied them hormones.

16:23
Marie Foegh
The warning on all hormones' patient information is wrong, and it's just been slapped on every hormone without discriminating between which hormone are we using, how are we giving it, and so forth. So that will change. There's already been an advisory board meeting at the FDA, and they will get the warnings out, and they will change on many of the hormones, and be more nuanced than they are today.

16:48
Marie Foegh
And what he stresses, the commissioner, is that yes, there may be a little increased risk for breast cancer, but it's not an increased risk of dying from it, it's a slightly increased risk of getting it. On the other hand, one in ten women get breast cancer without getting hormones. So the risk is being a woman.

17:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I feel that more and more women have started opening up about menopause and are more eager than ever to find a solution to the symptoms. Is that the case?

17:18
Marie Foegh
Yes, that's true. They don't take no for an answer today, at least not the ones I see, of course. They just give up on their physician and then seek private treatment. That attitude is different. I think ten years ago, they would just have said, okay, so be it. And then many are saying I think it's because I'm getting old, I'm getting these symptoms. And I'm telling them, around 50, you are not that old, you have 50 years left.

17:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Your research is about perimenopause and menopause. Just so we all know what we are talking about: what is perimenopause and menopause and why do women go through it?

18:01
Marie Foegh
Perimenopause is the period before your period stops, if you will, or while your periods are regular. And that can start very early. The perimenopause, for some it starts around 30, but generally it's around 35 years of age, and then goes up to 45. Women still have regular periods and therefore they are told it's not your hormones. It is. Later on, you stop making estrogen and you stop having periods. And that we all know is bad for you.

18:30
Marie Foegh
You need your estrogen. What is not so well-known is that in perimenopause, your hormones, your estrogen swings much, much more than it normally does in a menstrual cycle. And that's just as bad for your organs as having none. And your estrogen can be three, four times higher than it normally would go in a menstrual cycle.

18:53
Marie Foegh
And that's why women with premenstrual symptoms get worse in perimenopause. And many of those symptoms are menopause symptoms. Many of them get so bad that they can't work either. They stop working.

19:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Now I'm asking as if I don't know, because you can imagine I know all too well. I'm perimenopausal myself. What are the symptoms that women have when they go through menopause and perimenopause?

19:20
Marie Foegh
The list is long and is nearly any kind of symptom. I have every woman fill in a sheet about their symptoms. And many of them say, oh, is that really because of my hormones? Everybody knows hot flashes. In perimenopause, you don't have hot flashes yet, but you have all the other symptoms.

19:38
Marie Foegh
The other symptoms are your joints are hurting, your muscles are stiff, you can't sleep. Your libido disappears. Absolutely no desire for sex. Your vagina gets dry so it even hurts. You get headaches, some get migraines they have never had before. And you gain weight. So women are really frustrated. You gain a lot of weight, many women will.

20:00
Marie Foegh
And it doesn't matter what you do. You can eat less, you can go to the fitness center as much as you want, you can run as much as you want. You don't lose weight, you only gain weight. Nobody has really believed that except myself, but after Wegovy got on the market, they observed that women who don't have estrogen — menopausal, premenopausal — don't lose weight on Wegovy or maybe only half of what others lose.

20:29
Marie Foegh
So now the world will start accepting and looking into what is estrogen doing to metabolism. I don't know what it's doing. I've just seen the effect of what's missing. That's a big frustration for many. And then it's of course the infamous brain fog and cognitive problems. Can't remember, can't get words in your head. They won't come out of your mouth. Even some wrong words come out to the embarrassment of oneself. Don't know why one was saying it.

20:59
Marie Foegh
And you get very irritated. Irritability is enormous. You can't hold it back. You have to say, I'm so sorry so many times that you get tired of that too. And then, anxiety, depression, panic. It's all there.

21:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's a long list, Marie.

21:19
Marie Foegh
And then, oh yeah, another one. It also keeps women up at night, they have to go pee all the time. They feel the need to pee all the time. That's also the estrogen that's needed, either to be stabilized or given. And another interesting thing I found in Denmark, not so much in the US, people get tinnitus. I haven't looked too much into that yet.

21:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That I didn't hear.

21:42
Marie Foegh
I start noticing it, and for some, it disappears when they get estrogen. Not everyone, but some.

21:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was your own menopause like, and when did your menopause start? And when did you start treating yourself?

21:55
Marie Foegh
I don't know what my menopause would've been like, because I started treating myself —

22:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Smart.

22:02
Marie Foegh
— in perimenopause, so I don't know.

22:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's interesting. So as I mentioned, you're in your 80s. Are you still on hormone treatment?

22:13
Marie Foegh
Sure am. I think you need it for the rest of your life.

21:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So you will never stop?

21:18
Marie Foegh
No, I will not. And I've got great support from a big US study that came out. I think it's soon two years ago, and that's from the NIH, where they followed ten million US women from when they were 65 years old, and looked at what happened over time.

21:37
Marie Foegh
And what they found when they compared the ones who took hormones after the age of 65 to the ones who didn't, is that the ones that took it lived longer, had fewer diseases, including less cancer.

21:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Huh. Also breast cancer?

21:52
Marie Foegh
No. Breast cancer was slightly increased if you've got combination therapy. But for a series of other cancers, you got less, so the overall cancer risk was less. If you only get estrogen, you decrease the risk of breast cancer. That's also lost on many. Even that was seen already in the old study that scared the world, but it was never publicized that much. And then they also said, you increased the risk of cardiovascular disease and dementia.

23:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was your reaction to the American study from about 20 years ago that scared women off because of the findings that most women increased the risk of breast cancer?

23:30
Marie Foegh
I was very surprised at the time because I was in the midst of starting a clinical trial showing that estrogen decreased the risk of dementia with one of the university's hospitals in New York City.

23:43
Marie Foegh
But all that falls to pieces because nobody could start anything with estrogen with that message. Here, they got the opposite result because all signs have shown that estrogen protects against cardiovascular disease, protects against dementia. We were not surprised about the slight increased risk of breast cancer.

24:01
Marie Foegh
That wasn't so surprising because there are a lot of studies showing that. You can make it worse or you can make it better when you study breast cancer cells. It was all the other things that were surprising because that was opposite of what science told us.

24:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So you were not impressed.

24:18
Marie Foegh
No, I was not. I was wondering, what's going on here? My attitude is that we need our estrogen, our organs are not developed for not having estrogen. It's unnatural not to get estrogen. Hormone treatment was very much in until it was stopped overnight by a press conference on the subject. And that was the NIH also, wanting to stop women using hormones. I think the ones who did it are not alive anymore.

24:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you find that it's easy to get funding in the US for your work or has there been a change in this?

24:55
Marie Foegh
They always made lip service to women and said, we will support it and we put money aside for funding. But like the rest of the world, it's never spectacular enough for most scientists that go there and many go rather to something more spectacular.

25:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what's spectacular, for instance?

25:15
Marie Foegh
Maybe trying changing the genetic malfunction and things like that. That has a higher priority. And cancer is always spectacular. If you can make breakthroughs in cancers — been trying that since President Nixon made the war on cancer. So yes, it's never been easy. What I did, I looked at the effect of estrogen on the rejection of organs. And then it's okay because that was a new subject.

25:44
Marie Foegh
And the reason I started looking into that was because I was a director of the organ transplant program and I had a patient who was menopausal and asked me if she could take estrogen, if that would harm her kidney transplant. So I went to the library and went through all kinds of literature. There was nothing about it.

26:04
Marie Foegh
So then I decided, okay, in my models, I have a look into that too. And I found that no harm would be done, you actually maintain the blood vessels to the organs better. So she got her estrogen.

26:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Wow. That was a lot of research —

26:20
Marie Foegh
It got funded because that was of interest to the transplant world.

26:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Marie, you've been professor at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., as I mentioned before, and you've written an impressive amount of scientific papers and contributed to books. You have a long career, and you have accomplished so much.

26:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What has been, if you should highlight to us, the most amazing things that you've achieved, the most amazing experiences that you have had? What are the highlights of this long impressive career that you've had?

26:55
Marie Foegh
I think it's always fascinating to try and get better treatment for diseases. And as you may know, I have also worked in the pharmaceutical industry focusing on women's health and lately on women's cancer. I think that is very satisfying and you feel you help patients.

27:20
Marie Foegh
And as a physician, that's always deep in my soul, I think, that I'm here to help and the most satisfying thing is actually — I wasn't going to do very much anymore, and then started the clinic in Copenhagen for menopausal women and all of a sudden, it exploded. And I feel really I am saving so many women's lives.

27:44
Marie Foegh
After they felt they could not do anything for years, they can go back to work. Even after several years, you can get back. So many, when they come for the follow up, said you have saved my life, all of a sudden I can recognize myself again, I got myself back, I got my body back.

28:01
Marie Foegh
And then there's the husband who came a long way, hundreds of kilometers, thanking me for getting his wife back. So I will say these are highlights because that's really what you want to do as a physician.

28:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you decided to open a clinic in Copenhagen. Why did you do that?

28:19
Marie Foegh
I have family in Copenhagen, so it wasn't so hard to do because that gave reason to visit more often. But that wasn't really the reason. The reason was that I had for years been asked by a psychiatrist I know in Denmark if I would open a clinic in Copenhagen, so his patients who were perimenopausal or menopausal could get hormone treatment. He could see his psychopharma wouldn't work anymore no matter what he did.

28:46
Marie Foegh
But what worked was to give them hormones, stabilize their hormones, or give them hormone treatment. But he couldn't find any gynecologist who would do it. I said, okay, let me try, and that could be a small step of moving back to Denmark if I should do that one day. So that was just once a month for half a week, not very busy. And then I did a podcast on Danmarks Radio, and that exploded with patients after that.

29:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Good to hear that podcasts can do wonders.

29:16
Marie Foegh
Yes, yes, that's true. So I had to change my life a little bit because I had to be much more in Denmark. I felt I could not just abandon all these women who got hopes by hearing the podcast.

29:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Good to hear. What would you say are the most important lessons that you personally took away from your work?

29:36
Marie Foegh
You always have to be persistent, even if you hit roadblocks, which you will, because if you pursue in science what's not in at the moment, it can be hard because nobody really takes an interest. And if they do, they doubt what you're doing.

29:55
Marie Foegh
But if you really believe it yourself, you see it in your science, you have the data to prove it, then you should go ahead because it's really important to open new doors and knowledge in research because that's the way to better treatment of patients. And women's health needs a lot of research.

30:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have worked so many years in the US. As a Dane, do you feel American or Danish? And which parts of you are distinctly Danish and which parts are American, you would say? What have you picked up from the Americans?

30:31
Marie Foegh
I think what I have picked up from the Americans is that everything is possible. And it turned out that it is. I'm more American than Danish because I've lived also longer in America than I've lived in Denmark.

30:44
Marie Foegh
I was surprised that the podcast hit so many women, that they all of a sudden understood what was going on. And I have asked a couple of professionals why that is, professionals in Denmark in journalism. And they say it's because you are more American than Danish. You say things like they are, you don't wrap it up and put a bow tie on it.

31:10
Marie Foegh
And I think that may be difficult then to live in Denmark because most people don't like that. You can't be different in Denmark, I still feel. In America, it's a virtue. In Denmark, it's a bad thing.

31:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So which parts are still Danish?

31:27
Marie Foegh
What feels Danish? You know what I do? Each time I come to Denmark, at least, most of the time, I go to Louisiana, the art museum in Northern Zealand. And I think that's a very Danish place, although the art is international and I feel, okay, I'm in Denmark now.

31:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you still feel you relate to your hometown of Sønderborg?

31:54
Marie Foegh
No, I don't. From when I was very young, I couldn't wait to leave. At that time, your parents could sign you up to university, you didn't have to do it yourself. So my parents signed me up to the university in Jutland, in Århus, and I told them I'm not going there. And they got me everything, college room and everything.

32:12
Marie Foegh
And I signed up in Copenhagen and they said they wouldn't pay for my trip to Copenhagen. So I arranged for joining as an assistant for a class that was going on a trip to Copenhagen. So I got my trip paid.

32:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
They had a very strong opinion about what you should do and not do. They didn't want you to become a ballet dancer, and they didn't want you to study in Copenhagen. How did you become such a strong minded woman?

32:40
Marie Foegh
That's probably due to my parents.

32:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
They could not control you, but they tried.

32:47
Marie Foegh
That's right.

32:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you feel fully at home in the US? You've been to many states and lived in many parts of the country.

32:55
Marie Foegh
It's a little bit like you feel at home everywhere you go, and then you get restless after a while. I think that's where you end, a little bit restless.

33:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Is that why you're in Miami now?

33:06
Marie Foegh
Yeah, I think so. But also for weaning myself off all these things that New York can offer.

33:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you think in Danish or do you think in English?

33:16
Marie Foegh
I think in English. If you wake me up in the night, I will speak English to you.

33:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Really?

33:21
Marie Foegh
Yes, but that's probably because I've been speaking more English than Danish. So the worst thing you can do to me is invite me to Denmark and ask me to make a scientific presentation in Danish. That's difficult. All that I have learned only in English.

33:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I get that. When I talk about movies, I prefer speaking about them in English too.

33:45
Marie Foegh
Yeah.

33:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Talk a little bit about Miami and the move to Miami. What is it about Miami that attracts people from New York?

33:53
Marie Foegh
The weather, the easy living. New York is with many rules and regulations. It's so much, much less in Miami, although there are some, of course, otherwise it couldn't function. Another thing that attracted me, it's actually easy to travel from Miami to Copenhagen.

34:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Easier than New York?

34:14
Marie Foegh
It's longer. But actually that's good because then you can get a night's sleep. When you travel overnight from New York, it's a little short.

34:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's six hours and you can't really sleep much.

34:24
Marie Foegh
No. So that's a little bit better from Miami.

34:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Are you located in South Beach?

34:29
Marie Foegh
No, I wanted to be close to where the action is, in Brickell.

34:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what do you mean by action?

34:37
Marie Foegh
Culture, and good restaurants. I like good food.

34:41
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So it sounds like culture has always been important for you.

34:44
Marie Foegh
That's true. It has.

34:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Talk about your relationship to it, to art.

34:49
Marie Foegh
I always go to museums when I go to a city. Traveling for research in Asia, I like to go and see their art inspired by their own culture. The young art is inspired by their own culture, I like to see that. And why do I like to see that? I like everything new, I guess, novel, different.

35:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you think that it has enriched your life, that you've had the opportunity to live in two countries that are as different to each other as the US and Denmark? And what are the most positive things you want to highlight about the US and then Denmark?

35:32
Marie Foegh
About the US, it still is a land of opportunities and it's still so much easier to do the things you want to do. You don't hit a wall like you easily do in Denmark. Everybody wants you to succeed. I think I like that about America. And it's a huge country. You can find anything. What I know about America's East Coast, West Coast living, I don't think I could live easily in the Midwest because that's too different again from what I'm brought up with in Denmark.

36:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And Denmark?

36:13
Marie Foegh
When I moved and decided to stay in the US, I always said my ideal life is I work in the US and then I commute back to Denmark in the evening for the social life.

36:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
There's no good social life in the US?

36:26
Marie Foegh
It is much more about work than it's about social life. It really is.

36:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Everybody's networking all the time.

36:34
Marie Foegh
Yeah, it's always about work somehow.

36:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What should Danes learn from Americans and what should Americans learn from Danes?

36:43
Marie Foegh
In my ideal world, Denmark should be much more open to new ideas, new thinking, not so conservative, believing in authorities. And in the US, they could learn a lot from the social living in Denmark.

36:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
As I said before, you seem to be a pretty young woman. So my final question to you is about where you would like to grow old, retire and end your days on this fabulous earth. Where would you like for your remains to be when you're not physically here anymore?

37:20
Marie Foegh
That's a very interesting question and I don't have the answer yet, but I better find one soon.

37:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
But you've made some ideas. You've thought about moving back to Denmark, I can tell.

37:32
Marie Foegh
Yes. I'm a little reluctant because I may find it difficult to live in Denmark. Maybe too small for me, in reality, then you can say you have all of Europe around you. So I don't know. And when do I retire? I tried to retire once actually when I was in my 70s, and I didn't like it. And so I got back to work. At that time, I got so restless, I was about to buy a vineyard in Italy. But fortunately I saved myself by getting a job offer in the US. And I'm happy I didn't go that route.

38:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
On that note, thank you so much for being part of Danish Originals. We really appreciate it.

38:15
Marie Foegh
Thank you. I enjoyed it very much.

38:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you for being here.

38:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Marie Foegh chose Amedeo Modigliani's Alice from 1916–1919 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.