Exhibitions

The museum's main task is to take care of the Norwegian cultural heritage in technology, science, industry and medicine and to convey the development of the subject areas with emphasis on the last 200 years. There are permanent exhibitions with objects from the collections and temporary exhibitions where the museum invites you to new, exciting and interactive encounters in the past and present. The museum's main initiatives in 2019 have been the temporary exhibitions Moon landing 50 years and BLIND SPOT.

Exhibitions 2019

The moon landing 50 years

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. In 2019, the museum marked the anniversary with the exhibition Moon landing 50 years.

In the exhibition, visitors could take a seat in a full-scale model of the landing capsule of Apollo 11, pilot the lunar lander Eagle next to a highly accurate model of it in scale 1/8, and follow the space race through the iconic images, films and stories. The museum had also borrowed a real moon rock from the NTNU Science Museum, and produced several new interactive installations which will in future be reused in Oslo Science Centre .

It has been fantastic to create this exhibition together with my talented colleagues, and it was very gratifying that it was a success. I myself was born in the year of the moon landing, and grew up with an interest in space travel. And when I started at the museum, I gave many tours of the 25th anniversary exhibition for the moon landing, says Dag Andreassen, curator of the Moon Landing 50 Years at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology .

The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology 's first presentation of the moon landings was in 1970, when a large moon rock created queues and a record number of visitors at the old museum in Helsfyr. The 10th, 25th and 40th anniversaries were also marked with exhibitions. This time the museum chose to focus on interactive installations. It proved once again that the topic of space travel is something that interests.

Aerospace expert and civil engineer Erik Tandberg was an important person in the dissemination of the aerospace events 50 years ago, and in the exhibition the museum was also able to utilize the new collection of NRK-related equipment in the reconstruction of a studio environment where visitors could themselves be an aerospace expert in a TV studio, " filmed” by the same camera from Studio 1 that was used at the time. The moon landing has several times been named the most important TV event of the last century, and the television focus in the exhibition also provided a good connection between the events on the Moon and in the USA and the mood and debate surrounding space travel in Norway at the time.

Mankind's first journey and first landing on another planet is something you do for the first time only once. In a hundred or a thousand years, 1968 and 1969 may be the most famous years of this time, says space expert Erik Tandberg.

Erik Tandberg was also a consultant for the exhibition's content, and presided over the opening of the exhibition on 11 April. He was also the guest of honor on the anniversary itself, 20 July, when the museum had an event that lasted until 21.17 - the actual 50th anniversary moment of The Eagles' moon landing. The event had a large turnout, and also received an hour's live TV broadcast on NRK.

The exhibition opened at 11 on April 11 for a large audience. The artist Benny Borg performed some of the same songs he and Kirsti Sparboe contributed to the live TV broadcast from the moon landing in 1969.

The sound artwork The Big Bang by David Skinner and Ulrik Ibsen Thorsrud was also included in the exhibition. The work had support from the Norwegian Culture Council. A catalog was published for the exhibition, and the exhibition was widely used for school teaching and guided tours for adult groups. Exhibition period: 11 April – 30 December 2019.

BLIND SPOT

In BLIND SPOT, the audience is invited to explore the eye and what it is to see. The exhibition contains art installations and historical objects from the museum's ophthalmology collection and examines the relationship between sight, our perception and human experiences in a range from the eye's blind spot to our cultural blind spots.

The exhibition has been developed in collaboration with artist Karen Kipphoff at the Academy of Performing Arts, Østfold University College, as part of the research project Blind spot – Staring Down the Void, with support from the Program for artistic development work. The exhibition opened in May 2019, and will be open to the public until summer 2020.

PEOPLE – from racial types to DNA sequences

FOLK received the award for best exhibition in the category large exhibitions 2018 from the British Society for the History of Science.

FOLK explored the historical and contemporary studies on human biological variation and the interaction between research, society and culture. The exhibition discussed modern DNA research and controversies surrounding access to genetic material, language, methods and theories used. FOLK opened the door for reflection on how past research has contributed to legitimizing the slave trade, colonialism, class differences and nationalism. The topic is very topical. Scientifically outdated racial ideas are still alive, and today's research is still surrounded by difficult questions.

We are very proud of FOLK, which took home this prestigious award and this only confirms the high international research and museological standard found at the museum, and the global relevance of the questions explored in the exhibition. We hope and believe that the message from the exhibition will live on in our discussions and in the ways we try to understand each other and the world around us, says exhibition curator for FOLK at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology , Ageliki Lefkaditou.

The museum created its own website and published a catalog for the exhibition. FOLK was used actively in the communication to school classes, adult groups and weekend and holiday visitors. The dissemination included a number of events and seminars, as well as several research publications.

The exhibition was developed in collaboration with the Cultural History Museum (UiO). Árran julesáme guovdásj/lulesamisk center , Setesdalsmuseet and Grorud youth council (in connection with the installation Lyden av FOLK) have been co-producers.

The interdisciplinary research that formed the basis of FOLK was funded by the Research Council of Norway, while the exhibition itself was funded by the Research Council of Norway and Fritt Ord. Exhibition period: 21 March 2018 -15. December 2019.

Grossraum

The exhibition Grossraum – Organization Todt was about forced labor in Norway in the years 1940-45. During the Second World War, Organization Todt became the largest builder in this country and had a workforce of 90,000 forced laborers - most of them prisoners of war from the Soviet Union. The organization built roads, railways, airports and fortifications and made Norway an integral part of the Nazi forced economy. Various themes from the exhibition have been conveyed to the public through the museum's regular weekend program and through special dissemination programs intended for primary and secondary school students. Among the themes are collaboration and the place of technology in Nazi propaganda.

The exhibition project has also contributed to the documentary series The Impossible Land, which was shown on NRK in spring 2019. Exhibition period: 16 February 2017 – 30 December 2019.

New in our exhibitions

The industrial model in the Akerselva exhibition is being renovated by the museum's friends association, in collaboration with the museum's conservators. This work is scheduled to be completed in 2020. The museum has also purchased a model railway, built by Horten Modelljernbane Klubb, from the defunct Horten car museum, with support from the Friends' Association. The course is set up on the mezzanine above the museum's foyer. The cars Buick Roadmaster from 1938 and Troll have returned to Kjelsås after being loaned out. The Roadmaster was in use when Crown Prince Olav returned to Norway on 13 May 1945 and when the rest of the royal family returned on 7 June. The museum's Troll is one of a total of four built Troll cars from Lunde in Telemark, built in 1956 – 58. To mark that it was 125 years since Oslo got its first electric trams, Hans Berge's historic film of a tram ride through the city has been a regular feature on the square in the communications hall. This dissemination has been supported by the Collective Transport History Council in Oslo and Akershus (Ruter). In 2019, we have investigated the possibilities of getting the museum's water wheel to turn again, and have engaged the company Heritage Engineering from Scotland to produce a new axle and operating system. This will be installed in early 2020. The glider in Oslo Science Centre has received a long-awaited renovation. The plane is a prop and has been used as an interactive installation since approx. 1990, but has also had an exciting history of use before that. Among other things, it has flown on Svalbard.

Contribution to exhibitions at other museums

The museum has several items that have been loaned to other museums for longer periods, such as Norway's first plane, Start, at the Air Force's Air Collection Gardermoen and Ekebergbanen's first regular bus at the Sporveismuseet. In 2019, the museum also contributed objects to new exhibitions at other museums. A hundred-year-old Violano Virtuoso music machine and a Smebyh table clock from approx. 1750 is included in the exhibition Music in a Box at the Ringve Music Museum. Abraham Pihl's astronomical binoculars from the end of the 18th century were a key object in the exhibition The Moon - from our inner world to outer space, at the Henie Onstad Art Centre. In addition, several of the museum's cars were present when the Norwegian Vehicle History Museum at the Norwegian Road Museum opened in its new exhibition building at Hunderfossen, including our Buick Roadmaster from 1938.

Planned exhibitions 2020–2021

The government quarter - a photo exhibition about an important quarter

After the terrorist attack on the government quarter, the discussion about both the preservation of the old and the construction of the new government quarter has intensified. In this context, a photo exhibition will be created with the museum's material from the area. The exhibition is based on photographs by Teigen's photo studio, probably the most important architectural photography company in Norway after the war. Truls Teigen, who was the company's chief photographer from the fifties, took photos for Erling Viksjø's architectural firm, which designed both the H and Y blocks in the government quarter, in all three construction phases. All photos that The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology owns from this work will be shown in the exhibition.

The pictures show the architecture, design and decoration that forms the basis of the Government Quarter, with pictures of the exterior and interior, but also furniture, lamps and other details.

Not least, there are interesting pictures of how the urban space around the quarter has developed during the various construction stages, which is particularly relevant now that we are in the middle of the process of thinking about a new government quarter, and in the discussions surrounding it.

Architecture photography as a genre exists at an interesting intersection between documentation and advertising. Largely commissioned by the architect, while the building is finished, but has not begun the slow degradation caused by use and wear and tear, it is both an expression of the architect's vision and serves as marketing for the architect, while at the same time documenting buildings for posterity, and not least, the photographs provide an opportunity to experience buildings that you do not have the opportunity to physically visit. In the exhibition, we will show a number of photographs, Teigen's cameras, a film from the casting of the H block and also include concrete elements produced by students from the School of Architecture in Oslo. The exhibition opens in February 2020.

Telecom and ICT exhibition

The museum is in full swing with work on a new exhibition about computer and telecommunications history, the present and the future, which is planned to open in November 2021. The exhibition, which will be over 1,000 m², covers the entire fourth floor and is the largest dissemination project since the museum moved to Kjelsås in 1986.

An overall concept for the exhibition has been developed and collaboration with the architectural office Snøhetta has begun. Many details and questions remain to get all the content, items and stories in place. During 2020, the museum will work on this in collaboration with a number of external partners. Current topics such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and gaming are just some of what will be explored and developed. Reviewing and supplementing the museum's large collection in data, telecommunications and broadcasting is another important area of work in the exhibition preparations.

The vision is that this will be an innovative and interactive exhibition that develops in step with the audience's use and response. The field is changing rapidly, and it is a goal that the exhibition should respond to developments and be an arena for discussing history, the present and the future.

Health and medicine history exhibition

With the new permanent exhibition opening in November 2020 The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology is renewing large parts of its exhibition offering. Both in a concrete and more figurative sense, the exhibition will form a new entrance to the medical rooms – that is, the exhibitions about health and medicine at the museum.

The central aim of the new exhibition is to touch and be touched . We want to give our visitors an experience that hits the stomach, the head and the heart, and something you carry with you for a long time. We will also make it possible for the users to influence and shape the exhibition and the museum, by taking in their perspective and input and by constantly developing.

The visitors will be invited to an open, shared wonder and reflection and knowledge development of key questions about what medicine and health is, has been, can and should be. The exhibition will engage across generations, backgrounds and knowledge. It will provide some answers, but also new questions. It invites dialogue and interaction.

Starting from one specific and special body - the museum's mummy "Maren i myra" - it is discussed how medical practices and technologies at different times and places investigate, understand and define the human body and thereby the basic conditions of man.

The exhibition opens up opportunities to develop new knowledge and insights on key historical and contemporary topics such as infectious disease medicine and the establishment of the healthcare system, the body as a research object and "thing", different medical views, practices and interpretations of illness and health, different treatment methods and understandings based on, for example light, electricity, X-rays and disability and adaptation.

Through a number of objects and photographs, works of art and interactive installations, the exhibition will highlight different voices, positions, practices and perspectives - both nationally and internationally.

Climate exhibition

The aim of the exhibition is to make the museum's visitors positively engaged in one of the most important topics of our time - the climate crisis. The basic idea is to open a "square" for discussion and emotional engagement, learning and motivation. The exhibition room will be a place where together we can find tools to deal with climate change.

The exhibition will consist of four main parts, the first of which is a workshop for object handling related to the upcoming exhibitions for ICT and the history of health and medicine. This will be a place to make the conservation process visible to our visitors and they are invited to explore the climate-related aspects of our objects.

The second part should have 3-4 central objects that can open up conversations where health and medicine, information and communication are seen in the context of the climate crisis. Current topics are the textile industry, industry and food production, infections, mental health, weather forecasts and the development of climate models.

The third part will have a discussion and display square with 3-4 platforms for use both by external contributors, such as activists, organisations, artists, and the museum's own relevant productions.

The fourth and final part will visualize the museum's process towards certification as an Environmental Lighthouse. The exhibition opens at the end of May 2020.