OMKAMP
The Women's Museum 30 years!
Kvinnemuseet, The Women’s Museum Norway, is celebrating 30 years as an arena for the fight for women’s rights. We are seeing a reversal of the rights fought for by the women’s movement, increasing international conflict and state censorship of museums. Previous fights have to be fought again, and Kvinnemuseet will continue our mission of collecting, exhibiting, researching and presenting the women’s cause in the years to come.
Bevare meg vel! / The fight for Rolighed
It was quite the coincidence, that the Women's Museum ended up in the swiss chalet style villa "Rolighed" (literally: tranquility). When Kongsvinger municipality decided to tear down the villa in 1985, a long fight to preserve it, with the recently established Kongsvinger Museum at the forefront. The salvation came in form of funds from the Norwegian Cultural Heritage Fund and the Directorate for Cultural Heritage, who had recently announced funding for projects related to women's cultural heritage. The villa, Rolighed, already had a rich women-filled history, being the childhood home of bohemian Dagny Juel.
In 1989, Rolighed was bought, and the grand transformation from abandoned woodshop to museum could begin. The restoration was guided by the antiquaric principle of making as few changes as possible. Still, the museum wished to peel back the villa's historical layers as a housing estate, nazi quartering and vicarage. Rolighed were to be revived into the manor the Rynning family had built in the 1850s - at least the exterior. The interior was rebuilt to accomodate exhibition rooms, conserts and a café.
The work to restore and finance took six years. The villa had a leaky roof and rotting wood, but the walls held up and most of the panelling only needed a scrape and paint. Emloyment programmes financed much of the works, and many workers contributed. Pupils at the carpentry and woodworking schools reconstructed the old panelling, the decorative details and the magnificent veranda. In 1995, the museum could finally open!
Museet mot strømmen / The museum against the current
"I imagine a central institution where the woman is at the base, and neither a paranthesis nor a side issue"
Kari Sommerseth Jacobsen in Museumsnytt nr. 2/1987
From the start, Kvinnemuseet has been a protest museum - a protest against the male dominated storytelling in museums and a campaign to give women their place in our common history. That is why Kvinnemuseet has actively collected items and stories from everyday life and the fight for women's rights, from washing machines to activist panties.
Kvinnemuseet is a part of the larger women's movement. Through the years many women's organisations have been represented in our board of representatives and ownership, among others The Norwegian Society of Rural Women, The Norwegian Women's Public Health Association and the Soroptimist Club. Locally, we also have a close collaboration with the 8th March Commitee in Kongsvinger. In the Museum Network for Women's History we work for a better representation of women in Norwegian museums: Is women's history prioritised? Are items related to women's life and work colleted? How are women presented in the exhibitions?
We are far from the only women's museum in the world, and through the International Association of Women's Museums (IWM) we are in contact with over 40 others. Kvinnemuseet has been an active participant in the organisation since the beginning and museum leader at Kvinnemuseet Mona Holm has been president several years. The English web exhibition Shhh! Stories about abortion and sexuality is made in collaboration with IAWM.
Pionerkvinner og husmødre på utstilling / Pionéers and housewives on display
Kvinnemuseet opened in 1995 with the exhibition Kvinneskjebner (the destinies of women). It presented the lives of a generation of women born before the First World War, their conditions and opportunities, and the societal changes they lived through. Many of the exhibitions at Kvinnemuseet have presented broadly about women's lives - in the home and in the public. Kjøkkenbenken tur-retur (the kitchen counter return) opened in 1998 and showed the history of the housewife, through four generations, while Camillas latter (Camillas laughter, 2000) told the Norwegian women's movement through its 150 year long history.
The museum has also made exhibitions on topics that are especially relevant for women and women's role in society. Some exemples include body and beauty in Og Gud skapte kvinnen... (And God made woman...,1997), public health services in Hvordan har vi det i dag? (How are we doing today?, 2003), war and peace in Ned med våpnene! (Down with the weapons!, 2005), homosexuality in En annen dans (An other dance, 2008), wedding traditions in Lykkelige alle sine dager... (Happily ever after..., 2011) and gender and childhood in Lek for livet (Playing for life, 2017).
There is also room for particular women's destinies and achievements at Kvinnemuseet. Din Dagny (Your Dagny, 2017) present the artist life of Dagny Juel. Isbryteren (the Icebreaker, 2022) was devoted to scientist, writer and polar explorer Monica Kristensen. The exhibition room has room for a multitude of stories, the small and the big fights, the new and the old.