Flexible Exhibition space / We Are Seediq at the Museum of Etnography

01/10

The Museum of Ethnography of Sweden displays more than 8000 objects collected during the expeditions and round the world trips of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Its basement houses many more artefacts of unclear history. The museum conducts continuous work of unraveling the stories of these objects and presenting them to the public.

As a complement to the fixed exhibitions, the museum needed a Flexible Exhibition Space, where the stories found in the archives could be told in a contemporary fashion. Olsson Lyckefors was asked to design this space, and the first exhibition to take place in it.

The Flexible Exhibition Space is a circular room with a functional centerpiece. The perimeter acts as a canvas for 360-degree video projections, while the centerpiece houses technology, showcases for objects, transformable seating, and a filtered view out towards the video canvas through a bunkerish, shiny, horizontal slit.

The functionally driven design of the centerpiece gives it a highly specific character, reminiscing equally of a tomb as of something from a sci-fi-movie. It stands in stark contrast to the perfectly circular, generic canvas of the perimeter.

Together, they form the tools and machinery for an immersive museum experience.

For the first exhibition, WE ARE SEEDIQ, the Flexible Exhibition Space was complemented by another space. Designed in co-creation with representatives of the Seediq, the Taiwanese indigenous people whose story is the subject of the exhibition, it took the form of an abstract, green mountain with a cloud hovering above.

For graphics and visual identity, Olsson Lyckefors collaborated with artist and designer Gabor Palotai.

The exhibition received the Swedish Design Award’s Gold Medal in the XL Design – Exhibition Booth category in 2024.

Typology	Exhibition space, exhibition design
Size	220 sqm
Year	2023
Status	Completed
Participants	Gabor Palotai - graphics, Medea Ekner - curator

Client	Museum of Ethnography
Team	Andreas Lyckefors, Johan Olsson, Viktor Stansvik, Lisa Ekström, Johan Häggqvist, John Ridderstolpe
Location	Stockholm, Sweden
Photography	Erik Lefvander