Museums lead the way to a good life, and so do the three regions

Source: Global Times

Editor's note: May 18 is World Museum Day, and the International Council of Museums has chosen this year's theme as "Museums, Sustainability and the Better Life". As an important part of building human cultural life and spiritual world, museums invisibly nourish our hearts. Through the characteristics of museums in three regions around the world, the Global Times reporter shows the latest development trend of museums and their relationship with the cultural competitiveness of cities.

Northern Europe uses museums to change the mood of the city

Norway is often the first thing that comes to mind is a Nordic country known for its magnificent nature, with stunning fjords and snow-capped mountains. But in recent years, Norway has wanted to change people's stereotypes, sparing no effort to invest heavily in museum construction, aiming to make the capital Oslo a vibrant cultural hub in the Nordic region, and even lead Oslo's transformation into a global cultural capital.

Over the past decade, Oslo has undergone dramatic changes, opening up a range of creative cultural institutions, including the iconic Oslo Opera House, the innovative Munch Museum, and the Norwegian National Museum. These cultural institutions attract visitors from all over the world and also cement Norway's reputation as a centre of cultural, creative and innovation.

For decades, along with the rugged and rocky islands of the fjords, Oslo was often ridiculed by foreign media as silent and too expensive, sometimes just a stopover point for tourists heading to the mountains or cruise ships. After years of hard work, Karin Heinzbo, director of the Norwegian National Museum, boasted: "Norway is much more than fjords and mountains, which will be a surprise when people come to visit in the future." ”

In 2008, the Oslo Opera House officially opened, attracting visitors from all over the world with its eye-catching exterior design and world-class performances. Another important cultural institution in Oslo is the Munch Museum, which costs around NOK 300 million (195 million yuan) and houses 42,000 exhibits about the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, including his famous work The Scream. Today, it is an important part of the daily lives of people in Oslo and the surrounding area.

In June 2022, the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, with an investment cost of more than NOK 6.15 billion and an area of more than 55,000 square meters, was officially opened. As the largest museum in the Nordic region, the museum has around 100,000 exhibits from the Middle Ages to modern times, further strengthening Oslo's position as an international city of culture.

In Norway, investment in new museums and cultural districts is seen as a key part of the Nordic strategy as a cultural hub. Schjörberg, director of communications at the Munch Museum, said culture is an important part of Norwegian identity. "Museums and cultural institutions reflect our values, our history and our aspirations for the future," she said. Oslo City Councillor Lina Marianne Hansen said, "In the past, urban marketing in Oslo was mostly based on fjords and mountains. Now, we are increasingly focusing on marketing highlights that present ourselves as a cultural capital. According to the State of the Oslo City report, Oslo is becoming increasingly attractive as a commercial city, with new museums and cultural projects giving Oslo an even more international presence. Oslo Mayor Raymond Johansen said he was optimistic, "We are doing everything we can to put Oslo on the international (cultural) map." ”

It is clear that Norway's efforts to become the cultural hub of the Nordic region have yielded impressive results. Internationally, Norway's museum projects and other cultural achievements are widely reported in the media. The New York Times, for example, called the new Munch Museum a "monumental new building" and praised its "strikingly modern" design. The Art Newspaper called the Norwegian National Museum "the premier museum of art, architecture and design in the Nordic region".

Promoting economic growth, national identity, quality of life and global influence through cultural investment is also widely agreed in other Nordic countries. Finland, with a population of only about 5.5 million, is known to have more than 1,000 museums, of which 300 are open year-round and the rest are only open in summer. In recent years, Finland has taken many new measures to promote museum construction, such as the introduction of the Museum Annual Pass, which allows ordinary users to visit museums across the country for 76 euros compared to the generally high admission fees of European museums; Many museums also offer free admission days.

On 20 May, Tampere, Finland's third-largest city, celebrates its annual "Night of Museums". Local resident Tapeni, who just retired this year, told the Global Times that at the time of the event, there were many citizens who visited the museum, from the elderly to children, and he was happy to see such a scene.

In addition, in 2019, the National Museum in Stockholm, Sweden underwent a major renovation and expansion, with a 50% increase in exhibition area. In Denmark, the new Hans Christian Andersen Museum opened in Odense in 2020.

As Nordic countries continue to increase investment in cultural infrastructure such as museums, dialogue and cooperation and cultural exchanges between Nordic countries and the rest of the world will be further promoted.

The U.S. Mobile Museum goes into communities, schools

Different from the traditional way of attracting audiences into museums, mobile museums actively bring art to the audience. This form first appeared in the United States.

With the rise of community-engaged art, some museums in the United States began to explore non-traditional ways of exhibiting. The unique exhibition method of the mobile museum promotes the close connection between the museum and the community and the public. The rise of mobile museums is not unrelated to the rise of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 70s of the 20th century. At that time, the voice calling for social inclusion of vulnerable groups such as ethnic minorities, women and children, and the disabled was on the rise, and museums, as important cultural resources, made important contributions to promoting social equality and alleviating the unequal distribution of cultural services, and began to bring various exhibits and knowledge carrying history, art and science to people through mobile museums, without the need for visitors to travel long distances to visit museums.

Founded in 1976, the Texas Minority Engineering Coalition is a nonprofit organization that owns two mobile "science and technology" (STEM) museums, "science mobile stations" made up of oversized pickups and oversized trailers. Known as a "trailblazer," the STEM Mobile Museum welcomes thousands of Texas students each year.

Mobile museums often exist in the form of "pioneers". The museum initially moved some of the exhibits to RVs, buses and even caravans for several days of mobile exhibitions in schools, libraries, senior centers and rural communities. With technological advancements, the exhibition content has been greatly expanded, and museums can bring their collections directly to the audience in 3D digital form. There are also many mobile museums that add hands-on and artistic creation programs to allow people to experience the excitement of art and science firsthand.

To say that the most famous and influential mobile museum is the mobile museum under the American Museum of Natural History. The American Museum of Natural History was once known for the popular movie "Night at the Museum". The museum not only has a 1:1 reconstruction of the giant blue whale model, but also creates a realistic and historical simulation environment for the exhibited animals and human models of different races from all over the world. This rich exhibition content has been condensed and refined by the museum and reproduced in its mobile museum. Since its inception in 1993, the Natural History Museum's mobile museum has opened free exhibitions in more than 700 schools and libraries in New York City.

The mobile museum format is now used in many countries around the world. Based on the principle of "going to the crowd, entering the crowd", the mobile museum is allowing more people who have not visited the museum to feel the charm of human civilization through its unique model. At the same time, more and more universities are joining the ranks of mobile museums, promoting research results to various communities in the form of mobile exhibitions. When people's access to knowledge is no longer limited by thresholds, social equity and diversity can achieve faster development.

The rise of museum fever in the Middle East has consolidated the cultural foundation

The "Great Egyptian Museum", which cost more than 1 billion US dollars and took 20 years, will officially open to the public in the second half of this year, and is currently in a partial opening state. Recently, Oman's "Cross-Era Museum" has also been successfully completed, attracting a lot of attention. In March 2022, Qatar Museum Chairman Sheikh Al Maiya Shah Al Thani announced the country's plans to build three new museums in Doha, underlining the move towards becoming an art and cultural hub. Arab media said that in the Middle East, many countries have vigorously built museums to consolidate cultural foundations and display their cultural literacy and soft power.

As one of the important birthplaces of human civilization, the Middle East has a wealth of precious cultural relics, but due to history, war, smuggling and other reasons, many cultural relics have been lost overseas. To this end, the countries of the Middle East have made every effort to recover cultural relics from the diaspora abroad and have achieved some results. In recent years, the National Museum of Iraq has recovered a small number of cultural relics from the United States and Britain. Egypt is also constantly recovering artifacts from wandering in foreign lands. Egypt has also established the Directorate General for the Return of Cultural Objects and related committees and working groups to deal with the recovery of cultural objects.

Over the past few years, museum construction in Middle Eastern countries has been dizzying. Museums have high hopes in promoting cultural prosperity, promoting tourism, inspiring national pride, building an international image, and enhancing national soft power, and many museums in the Middle East have indeed played a corresponding role. For example, the Qatar National Museum has become a check-in place for Internet celebrities, but many netizens have said on social media that some museums seem to have "gimmicks", the form is greater than the content, and the original intention of construction has not been achieved.

Ding Long, a professor at the Middle East Institute of Shanghai Overseas Chinese University, told the Global Times that Middle Eastern countries attach great importance to the protection of national culture and the construction of national identity, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other countries have a short history of national construction, so it is necessary to create a sense of national identity, and the establishment of museums is a very important way. In addition, these countries used to be relatively backward in terms of economy, culture and education, and when they relied on the export of oil and natural gas to obtain huge wealth, they began to pay attention to the construction of culture, and museums are an important carrier for the embodiment of their national culture and cultural level.

【Global Times special correspondent in Sweden and Finland Yin Miao, Zhang Lei, Global Times special correspondent in the United States Zheng Ke, Global Times special correspondent in Egypt Huang Peizhao, Global Times reporter Wang Xiaojiao】