Almost back

Frode Meinich, director of The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology
Photo: Håkon Bergseth

As an organisation, we always try to be optimistic and solution-oriented. But, after more than five months with the museum closed in the first half of the year, motivation was put to the test here as well. Despite the uncertain times, our employees have shown incredible flexibility, and have been motivated to take on new, and for the museum, absolutely necessary tasks when we have constantly adapted to the infection situation and restrictions in the capital. Everything to give our visitors a meaningful museum visit, be it digital or physical.

With a lack of ticket revenue for large parts of the calendar year, we have also had many tough financial priorities in the past year. But we have also been lucky, and received some public compensation, which has been sufficient for us to keep the wheels turning, and continue to renew ourselves to the public's excitement, now and for years to come.

Our summer season, as in normal operating years, has the highest weekly visitor numbers, luckily it was quite good this year as well. It was truly a pleasure to welcome the Norwegian summer tourists back to a country that gradually opened up to social interaction with family and friends and the cultural experiences that we had all so sorely missed. After the good summer, we were finally able, on 24 August, to open the new permanent exhibition Life and Death, which thus renews large parts of the medical exhibition offer at the National Medical Museum and raises our total museum offer to new heights. The exhibition has received a warm welcome from our visitors of all ages and is already a big favorite with school visits.

1 + 1 actually sometimes becomes more than 2, especially when collaborating with others. We have previously experienced that collaborating with other museums on exhibition projects yields good results. Good results both in terms of exciting exhibitions that draw people to the museum and not to mention job satisfaction. It's fun to work together! In an exciting collaboration with the National Museum, we opened two new exhibitions this year: Gerhard Munthe - adventurous interiors which were later replaced by Sand in the machinery. Sand in the machinery can be experienced until spring 2022.

I am optimistic, also for 2022, and am now looking forward to opening I/O, the world's roughest ICT exhibition, already in the first half of the year.

Happy reading!

Greeting

Frode Meinich,
director at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology