A promising 2026

05 January 2026

Another year is coming to an end. Where does the time go? It is with great pleasure that I look back on 2025 and forward to 2026.

The year has brought joys, challenges and opportunities. I would like to highlight some of the incredibly positive things about Museum Nord: 

The employees: Both permanent and temporary, are absolutely incredible! With commitment to the job, pride in the result, care for each other and for the guests, we go to work every single day – to create good experiences. 

Photos: Museum Nord

The results: Good visitor numbers give us the necessary financial result but also a good reputation. The guests who visit the museums give us good feedback on the content, dissemination, yes – the experiences. I’m proud of that!

The challenges: They are many and in some cases very exciting and demanding. Financing of large projects. Meetings with partners with the aim of reaching agreement on new initiatives. Management of everything we have, both building and construction, collections and opportunities. 

The opportunities: We have set big goals and see even more opportunities in the time to come. It’s going to take all of us. I am proud to have a collegium like you to work with! 

Photo from Museum Nord’s staff gathering at Å in Lofoten, autumn 2025.

A promising 2026

Together, we will both meet the goals we have set for ourselves. Together, we are embarking on 2026. Together, we will take Museum Nord into the future. 

I want to reflect a little on this; the future. As a museum, we are often concerned with the past. However, museums are more than “just” a bearer of history.

“Trust, things and time”

The following is taken from the introduction to White Paper 23, the museum report, which is called “Trust, things and time”:

“Our museums are an expression of the development of a society, self-knowledge in a nation, the standard for freedom of expression and democracy in a community. Museum institutions are democratic pillars, part of the crucial infrastructure for the exercise of democracy and free expression. Museum policy therefore lays the foundation for a part of our common education. Just as museums play an important role in the nation-building of the young nation of Norway, do they play an equally important role in our own time’s understanding of ourselves? Both Kven me has ours, Kven me er and Kven me wants to be. The goal of museum policy is thus fundamentally to facilitate the large, dynamic conversation about us, and the orientation of museum policy is an expression of the government’s ambitions for the development of society in general.

This government wants a rich and diverse cultural life with room for many voices, stories and perspectives. Difor, the government has launched a major effort to promote diversity in participation, audience and representativeness. To succeed with this requires between other active museums. Fundamental museum professional questions are also fundamental social issues. For what stories and expressions should be guaranteed a place as cultural heritage? Kven’s voices should be included and Kven should have the confidence to select them? What things should be collected for posterity? Kven’s things are going to a museum? The museum policy gave the museum great confidence in these issues, and expects the museum to be particularly aware of this responsibility in the time that comes.

A museum is a knowledge institution. Knowledge is power. The museums has the power to define historical value, historical relevance, simultaneous topicality and perspective on truth. Museum policy is a policy for fundamental social values, and the museum is at the same time helping to shape these values. In a world where the flow of information is enormous and the demand for boiler management is sharpened accordingly, the museum’s legitimacy is linked to the handling of the power of definition. In a society where polarization seems to be increasing and the public debate is hardening, arenas are needed that have the public’s confidence to be able to nuance and put into perspective, anchored in knowledge, as the museum has today. The aim of this white paper is to draw the line for the development of the museum sector in a generational perspective. Also for future generations, there will be institutions in Norwegian society that in a systematic, trust-based and knowledge-based way collect, preserve, build knowledge about and convey the material and intangible traces of people and communities who at different times have lived and worked here, in interaction with the world around them. In the decades to come, it is crucial that the museum continues to be part of the infrastructure for free expression and professional autonomy, which a democratic society needs to be healthy and viable. The museum must be able to handle complex interests and developments. At the same time, they must find their form at a time when major global developments linked to digitalization, climate challenges and changed patterns of interaction, lay down important premises. For example, the work to achieve the UN’s sustainability goals also has consequences for the museum’s further development. This white paper aims to see the museum as a social institution with a binding power and basic expertise that will be central and important in the further development of democratic Norway.”

“Last, but not least, the museum today manages a great deal of trust. Both politics and the public trust the museum in its handling of the power of definition and knowledge. Perhaps this is the museum’s greatest capital of our time. The trust was linked to the museum’s autonomy and free, professional position. But he is first and foremost built up through the wishes of those who seek out and use the museum. This is a position that is not self-written and that must be taken care of, both by the museum itself, and by the structures that are supposed to maintain them as legitimate social institutions. With this white paper, the Government wants to make it possible for the museum to manage both trust, things and time on behalf of, and for the benefit of, our diverse community, also through the next generation.”

(Source: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld.-st.-23-20202021/id2840027/?ch=1) 

We are willing and able

Let’s take this with us into 2026. The knowledge that we, Museum Nord, have been trusted to take care of major tasks on behalf of society.

We are willing – and able. I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead of us.

Photo: Geir Are Johansen: Linn Olsen. Other: Museum Nord

With this, I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I look forward to 2026 with you!

Best regards,

Geir Are Johansen
Director