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Nordic Journeys expands the museum’s classic immigration story to include a broader understanding of Nordic life and culture as it has evolved over the last twelve thousand years.
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The artistic collaboration between Bit Vejle and Xiaoguang Qiao was born in fire. In 2010, Sino-Norwegian diplomatic relations were strained when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the annual Peace Prize to Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobao. Although bilateral relations normalized six years later, it was under these strained conditions that Vejle and Qiao's cross-cultural conversation began, resulting in an exhibition that travels the world. Hosted by the ArtHouse Jersey in the Channel Islands in 2016, the exhibition Paper Dialogues expanded to include two new artists, Layla May Arthur and Emma Reid, inspired by the earlier works. It is this iteration of the exhibition that will travel to the National Nordic Museum in the fall 2021, encouraging American practitioners in the art of psaligraphy to join in the conversation.
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M(other) Tongues: Bodhild and Las Hermanas Iglesias features the work of Bodhild Brendryen Iglesias and her daughters Janelle and Lisa Iglesias. Born to Norwegian and Dominican immigrant parents, Janelle and Lisa create project-based work under the name “Las Hermanas Iglesias” (Spanish for “The Iglesias Sisters”). The artists grew up in Queens, NY, and now reside on opposite coasts, maintaining independent and collaborative art practices. In addition to working together, they extend their process to the communities they convene, including other members of their family, and in particular, their Norwegian-born mother, Bodhild, an avid knitter.
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From Dawn to Dusk: Nordic Art from Sweden’s Nationalmuseum presents 56 paintings by Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish artists held in the collection of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden. The exhibition traces the final decades of the 19th century, a period of radical development in art of the Nordic countries, through scenes of everyday life, portraits, and landscapes by Vilhelm Hammershøi, Hanna Hirsch-Pauli, Carl Larsson, August Strindberg, Anders Zorn, and many others.
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Across the West and Toward the North: Norwegian and American Landscape Photography provides a new examination of Norwegian and American landscape photography in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the present time of devastating climate change and political conflicts about the environment and energy consumption, this exhibition considers a historical moment when once remote wildernesses were first surveyed, developed, and photographed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Drawing from the University of Bergen’s Picture Collection in Bergen, Norway; the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo, Norway; and a private collection, the exhibition investigates how two countries responded to the tourism influx, infrastructure changes, exploitation of natural resources, and the resulting effects of mapping and exploration.
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The work of Sámi artist Tomas Colbengtson and Swedish artist Stina Folkebrant reflects explores issues of migration, herd mentality, time, and forgotten past. For the Mygration exhibition, December 2022 to March 2023, Colbengtson selected and printed archival photos of Sámi immigrants to Alaska in the 1890s, which are paired with Folkebrant’s large-scale paintings of the eight seasons of the mountain world, illustrating the Sámi concept of time and the life of the reindeer. The paintings are hung in a circle with the photographs at center, inviting the visitor to become immersed in a panoramic image. Additionally, the Museum has commissioned Folkebrant, a muralist, to create a piece related to the exhibition’s theme on its campus.
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