LETTER FROM STOCKHOLM
If you've planned a trip to Stockholm, don't worry: The spectacular Vasa Museum, dedicated to the eponymous warship that sank in Stockholm harbour just moments after being launched in the early 17th century, is still open. The same goes for the Abba Museum, just opposite, providing a dazzling journey into the history of Sweden's most famous quartet, responsible for the country's first Eurovision victory.
However, your trip to the National Museum of Natural History will have to wait. On August 16, a section of the ceiling, weighing between 200 and 300 kilos, suddenly crashed to the floor. No one was hurt, but an inspection of the premises revealed that safety could no longer be guaranteed. Consequently, its doors will remain closed until the necessary repairs – postponed numerous times due to financial constraints – are carried out.
As for the Nationalmuseum and its vast collection of French paintings, it has been open only five days a week since the beginning of the year. It was already closed on Mondays, and then Tuesday was added to save money. According to Susanna Pettersson, the museum's former director, the coffers are empty. Worse still, the work carried out between 2013 and 2018, at a cost of 1.3 billion crowns (almost €110 million), has sentenced it to years of financial hardship.
Just before stepping down on June 1, Pettersson published a lengthy letter on the museum's website. In it, she explained that public subsidies "barely cover fixed costs" and that "all activities, including exhibitions, educational programs and conferences" must be financed by external funds. To keep the museum afloat, she has "cut office space, made staff redundant, reduced the number of exhibitions and closed for an additional day a week." These efforts have been futile: "This situation is no longer viable. What is needed is an increase in funding by 40 million per year to eliminate the structural deficit and ensure that the museum can continue to keep its doors open," she said.
This "museum crisis" – as it has come to be known in Sweden – is not confined to Stockholm's major museums. According to Gunnar Ardelius, secretary general of the Swedish Museums Association, museums nationwide face challenges. This is ironic, given that museums consistently rank as the most trusted public institutions in the trust barometer drawn up each year by the University of Gothenburg.
The news that the ceiling of the National Museum of Natural History had collapsed provoked outrage in Sweden. In the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the head of the cultural pages, Björn Wiman, declared that "the museum crisis [was] a disgrace for Sweden as a nation of culture," while his colleague, Lisa Irenius, denounced it as "a farce" in the pages of Svenska Dagbladet.
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