 In addition to the regular museum in Örnsköldsvik, we also have The Culture Factory. It is housed in an old shoefactory, one of the oldest factories in town, located near Mitthögskolan by the inner harbour. In fact, The Culture Factory does not only host two museums but also the Örnsköldsvik Art Workshop and Art School for children.
On the second floor is the reception, a cafeteria and the Modo Museum. Modo is the largest industry in the area and they manufacture paper. The museum shows the history of Modo from the early 19th century to our days, including the forestry, the process of transporting logs down the river and the chemistry involved in the process of transforming wood into paper. There is even a special workshop where visitors can try to make paper themselves. When I visited The Culture Factory students from Umeå School of Arts were preparing an exhibition in the same premises as the Modo Museum. Needless to say, this attempt at integrating an exhibition into a more specialized museum like this is very unusual. I think they did it pretty good, though. After they had finished, it was even hard to tell what things they had added.
On the third floor is the Gösta Werner Art Museum and a room for temporary exhibitions. The current exhibition in that room is called Lifebuoys. The artist, Kerstin Svanberg, was affected by the Estonia catastrophy. On that night, she was on another ship in the same waters where the catastrophy took place. For those of you who don't know, about 800 people died when Estonia was shipwrecked in 1994.
The Gösta Werner Art Museum is about the artists and sailor Gösta Werner (1909-1989). In his paintings, he often illustrates life at sea. The Museum has a large collection of his paintings along with lithographic works and a very realistic reconstruction of his studio. As the artist left very much of his work behind when he died, the museum changes constantly. There is also another Gösta Werner museum in Simrishamn in southern Sweden, and these two museums often exchange his works. The Örnsköldsvik Art Workshop is on the first floor along with the Art School for children. To be a member of this society you have to be a working artist. To the members' disposal are machines used for typography, enamelling and graphic art. Their premises are also used by students of the Art and Form programme of Nolaskolan, which is the other upper secondary school in Örnsköldsvik. Do you have a similar institution that offers a variety of cultural activities in your home town?
|
