Anmeldelser / Reviews

Anmeldelser • Nordic museology 2020 • 1, s. 120–126 Anmeldelser / Reviews Exhibitions isn’t necessarily the case. The city museum has a strong track record for critically approaching temporary exhibitions, peaking with the Göteborgs Födelse (The Birth of Gothenburg). award of Exhibition of the Year in 2014 for Permanent Exhibition, Gothenburg City their account of the lives of Roma populations Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden in the city. In this case, Göteborgs Födelse represents a turn towards a critical museology for the museum’s permanent exhibitions. Early 2017 was somewhat hectic for me. It While some of the critical approaches are more marked a significant turning point in my life, apparent, particularly in building awareness namely moving to Gothenburg to start my of the livelihoods of a broader spectrum of doctoral studies. Like most doctoral applicants, the historical society, this review also aims to I had devised a proposal, which despite some clarify aspects that may be less apparent, such deviations, I have more or less stuck to. Still, it as the participatory nature of the exhibition’s was only upon my first visit to the then newly design. inaugurated Göteborgs Födelse exhibition at Furthermore, in 2021 the 400th anniversary Gothenburg City Museum that I was able to of the foundation of the city will be celebrated, comprehend the material I intended to work preoccupying seemingly all institutions and with fully. It marked the start of an ongoing organisation on a city-wide scale. The munici- relationship, one which continually develops pality has marked the City Museum as a “clear with every moment of contemplation; such is start and home base for the historical element the life of a doctoral student. I was intrigued of anniversary preparations” (Göteborg & Co by the question how, and why, certain events, 2017: 23), creating the unambiguous position actors and activities were deemed to exemplify that both Göteborgs Födelse and the urban Gothenburg’s historic urban environment; space of the past are essential elements in the for whom should this story be of interest, and upcoming anniversary. what had they to gain from it? Rather than an autobiographical account, Gothenburg: the foundations however, this is a review of the exhibition. Conceptually, this is an exhibition, not only Enshrining the inception or foundation aiming to fossilise an account of the city’s genesis of a city, even one as comparatively young into public narrative but also an exploration as Gothenburg, as an objectified space of of the “first generations of Gothenburgers” collective identity, is commonly represented (Sandén 2017:7). In many ways, this has the among governments and states. This not hallmarks of an Authorised Heritage Debate only aids the formulation of city identity (Smith 2006), but on closer inspection that and placemaking but also regularly merits Anmeldelser commercial value within the sphere of tourism. Nya Lödöse 1473–1621 121 Through the negotiation of a sense of longue durée - a means of deriving a contemporary We then begin with the historiography of set of values from the city’s foundation, Nya Lödöse, a story primarily informed by a there is a vague, but unmistakably evident series of recent and exhaustive excavations genius loci within the centre of the city. This in the Gamlestaden area of the city (Cornell represents the everyday connections to the & Rosén 2018a), as well as several early city’s past through cues in the historic built twentieth-century interventions. Thematically, environment. Thus, the decision to make the the visitor is informed that the story is one exhibition the heart of the celebration renders of fear, mainly of war and sickness, and this the role of the historic city as a ‘first-place’ tension between survival and extinction is (Santos 2017) in the city’s identity all the widely present throughout this section. In more veritable. principle, the exhibition is intended to be The first place as performative spatiality understood through the gaze of a young girl, and the associated heritage affect that and her responses to the historical context Gothenburgers draw from the historic city around her. This has discernible consequences centre, is not necessarily the same as the for the content: the Thirty Years War and the temporally, or chronologically first settlement departure for New Sweden are largely absent, associated with the geographic area. In many as it was deemed not to impact the world view places, this primarily involves prehistoric of this character directly. settlement, though the direct influence The first object and focal point of the on contemporary urban values is variable exhibition is linked to this concept, focusing and seldom reaches beyond the landscape upon an engraved silver heart locket recovered characteristics and settlement location. In from a grave context identified in the earlier Gothenburg’s case, however, there are several excavations. The intention is that the object intermediaries, such as the late medieval town represents the heart of the city, but also it is of Nya Lödose, the town of Älvsborg with the perhaps implicit that the young girl whose adjacent fortress of Gamla Älvsborg, as well a perspective shapes our journey is the putative short-lived predecessor to Gothenburg built by owner of the locket. The locket itself has been Karl IX on Hisingen in 1603. It is with these on display previously, but within a larger intermediaries that the exhibition begins. collection which was felt to lessen its impact. Under the heading “a drama in three acts”, In this exhibition, however, it has been isolated the exhibition is demarcated into three sections, as a ‘hero object’, drawing the audiences entire each with a specific theme: “Nya Lödöse 1473– focus. The visitor’s imagination is called upon 1621”; “Göteborgs födelse 1621” and “Göteborg to unlock “the secret of the heart”, provoking 1698”. The visitor is then greeted with a short interest from the sense of mystery rather than animation characterising the late medieval and the complete comprehension of the object. early modern political and historical contexts This complements the pan-European research resulting from the plague, Kalmarunionen, effort to source the locket’s provenance well. herring shortages and numerous outbreaks The audio-accompaniment of a Poe-esque of war, that culminated with Gothenburg’s beating heart is slightly macabre, however. establishment. The central theme of this component of the Anmeldelser 122 exhibition is the difficulties of balancing the by Kistone (2020), the consultants on the prosaicness of everyday life with the disruption exhibition, the curated narrative is allowed of political unrest in Nya Lödose. The to flow without being hampered by excessive exhibition elucidates upon the periodic attacks text or object focus. In some cases, such as the on the settlement warranting the evacuation juxtaposition of the statues of the Virgin Mary, of the population for long and short periods St. Bridget (both deemed to be a better fit for (Cornell et al. 2018:193). This aspect of the the world view of a young girl than a Jesus exhibition is paralleled with the experiences of figure) and the Archangel Michael with the the present citizens; the notion of packing up squalor and sickness present in the settlement, one’s livelihood in a chest and fleeing from war the result is great empathy and serenity. and strife is one shared by numerous migrants throughout the city, imbuing the exhibition Göteborgs födelse 1621 with a far greater sense of proximity and immediacy. Next follows a departure from the main Much of the exhibition was shaped by narrative thread, showing how the plans and workshops with a test group of teenagers dreams for the city of Gothenburg became from a mixed area school in the city. While a reality. It begins with a more theoretical the collaboration with community groups installation comparing More’s Utopia with the for exhibitions such as “We Are Roma” planning of the city (fig. 1). Whilst the Utopian was well documented, this is the first time connections were not Swedish, and as Cornell et such an exercise has been undertaken for al. (2018:188) point out these connections were the museum’s permanent exhibitions. The generally not Early Modern in provenance but result was the complete transformation of the the product of twentieth-century architectural previous seventeenth-century displays; making theorisation, the exhibition’s conflation of emotional affect the objective, rather than utopic values and the grid systems of the absoluteness, to captivate a teenage audience. renaissance concept of the Cittá Ideale create a The results were significantly manifested in neat theoretical representation of the planning the thematic approaches, object selection and of the city. The defensibility and symmetry of the depth and precision of the accompanying the fortification is particularly well illustrated texts. by the high- resolution scans of the original It is the test group that we have to thank for technical drawings of the city, commissioned the display of late medieval weaponry. Perhaps from Krigsarkivet by the museum. Here, this may not add a great deal to the narrative Gothenburg is presented as a product of the to the adult visitor, though having spent my Dutch school of architectural development, childhood regularly roaming the halls of the whose inspiration presumably provides the Royal Armouries in Leeds, I can undoubtedly link to the Italian renaissance ideal. relate to its inclusion. The selection of objects, From the plans of the city, we are led through in general, is sufficient, and the ‘hero object’ to an intended gathering space for pedagogical model serves the narrative thread well – presentations for school groups. Instead, the in particular, highlighting the poor living space is dominated by a film montage created conditions in Nya Lödöse. When combined from a digital visualisation of the seventeenth- with the scenography aesthetic envisioned century city.

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