A visit to Nationalmuseum in Stockholm

Stockholm has been full of wonderful craft exhibitions this year. We’re celebrating the organisation Hemslöjden who is still going strong on its 100th year. I have been inspired by many of these exhibitions in diffrent ways, and today I thought I’d share a few photos from the one I most recently visited, called Slow Art.

Nationalmuseum in Stockholm is well worth a visit any day! Like many of the museums here the architecture of the building is pompous and impressive. Stone, marble, oak, high ceilings and gold. And some romantic murals by national painter Carl Larsson on the walls:

But, back to Slow Art… It’s the kind of exhibition where you walk slowly and say “oh wow!” in front of most pieces, read all the interesting information signs and yes, snap photos (because you are allowed to). So, yes a really well curated exhibition.

There are over 30 pieces from Nationalmuseum’s collections in the exhibition with a mix of silver, textile, glass and ceramic artifacts, all of them unique and crafted with care. In a beautiful celebration of how some things can be allowed to take time, a lot of time!

Tiny embroidery where you almost can’t see the stitches – now that is impressive! Here viewed by Madde, who was my accompanying me during the visit. This kind of exhibition is best viewed with someone like-minded who “gets it”, so we had a great time there together.

Even lunch was artful and enjoyed in a slow, leasurly way.

I loved the dried and pressed petals that are arranged into big flowers, by Gunilla Lagerhem Ullberg:

When the petals have been dried Gunilla combines them into patterns, in a new, two-dimensional version of nature. Isn’t this whole concept pretty cool? It’s hard to see the scale on my photos, but the flowers are huge compared to “normal” Swedish flora and fauna. Love that they are made-up but so nature-like – and oh so very beautiful. They totally inspire my imagination…

I used to collect and press flowers as a kid. Did you? I remember gluing small flowers into a notebook during at least one summer when I was younger. I wonder if I still can find that notebook…

Further inspiration/info (external links):

* Slow Art – More info about this exhibition
* Spanning the unexpected 35 minutes film about the museum

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