ISS 25 (1995).pdf - The International Council of Museums

In these last ten years I have mainly worked with people and their attitudes to
their own community and history. The frame of our Jives consists of a
dramatic scenery, water power as a key resource, modern technology and 3
big factories producing zinc, titanium oxide/high quality iron and calcium
carbide/dicyandianide. The community has 8000 inhabitants. The place
Tyssedal was at the turn of the century merely a crack in the mountain with
two farms. In 1906 it changed to become the largest construction site in the
country. In 1918 Tyssedal was a small town with a big power station as its
heart. Through water power and electricity Tyssedal and Norway became a
modern affluent society. This is the story of a rural village and an
internationally known tourist resort that changes overnight to become an
industrial town. It is the story of modernization and the story of women, men
and children that moved to Odda.
The society is the raw material of the Western Norway Industrial Museum.
The museum has gradually grown to what it is today, located in a living
industrial society where boats from all over the world come and go with raw
material and produce for export.
Today the museum is one of the largest in Norway on the subject of water
power. We show exhibitions on man in the industrial society, the history of the
environmental problems and the history of technology. We have archives
where information from the organizations and factories are collected and used
for research. Furthermore we have a film room with slides shows specially
designed to depict our history, and 3 workmen's dwellings, one of which
shows different interiors up to the 1990's. Finally the museum arranges guided
tours in the footsteps of the pioneer workers and to the industrial monuments
inside and outside the factories and the power station.
Hardanger is internationally known as an idyllic tourist resort. The glaciers,
the waterfalls, the blue-green fjord and the apple blossom make the scenery of
Hardanger look like a romantic poem. I am now going to take you to a
different and dramatic Hardanger where the mountains are high and the
valleys deep.
Tyssedal in Hardanger has another tone and rhythm, namely that of a shift
working society, a town of smelting works, heat and electricity.
As I mentioned previously, I was, as a student, familiar with the idea of the
ecomuseum; to preserve buildings and objects on their original site or
environment rather than moving everything to a museum building or a
museum area, and to document and explain how man coped with nature. Now
I had the opportunity to create a museum, a place where people were
encouraged to engage themselves in history, in the local community and
contemporary life and issues. To my mind a modern museum is interesting
only when the audience - the visitors- engage themselves and are participants
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