Bønder, ånder, dukker og skuespillere i de første folkemuseene ...sökte på allt sätt sökte gifva fullt åskådliga bilder af själva verkligheten...

Abstract

Peasants, ghosts, mannequins and actors in the early ”folkmuseums” The paper presents a discussion of the exhibition activities of the three great pioneers of the Scandinavian folk museums. Artur Hazelius (1833–1871) founded the Scandinavian Ethnographical Collections (later known as the Nordiska Museet) in Stockholm in 1873 and the open-air museum Skansen in 1891. Bernhard Olsen (1836–1922) founded the Danish Folk Museum and the Scandinavian Panopticon in Copenhagen in 1885, and the open-air museum at Sorgenfri in 1901. Anders Sandvig (1862–1950) built up a collection starting in 1887 that would become the foundation for the open-air museum at Maihaugen in Lillehammer in 1904.They were all talented exhibitors, using elements from the peasant culture of yesteryear to create an illusion of reality that would arouse the viewers’ sympathy, interest and understanding. They utilized various strategies in order to give life to the peasant, either by using a physical form in a room, or a picture that existed only in the eye of the viewer. They presented the peasants in the form of ultra-real figures in tableaux arranged according to accepted rules of naturalistic theatre. They reconstructed settings where the viewer could feel the unseen presence of her forefathers, could re-live the past and even ”become” a peasant herself. They used actors who played actual, living peasants with the help of authentic costumes, artefacts and surroundings.