Museum Castle Zoo

Being that I insist on seeing many body of waters as possible while in different places....I dragged Brent to the seaside of Oresund, the body of water that separates Sweden from most of Scandinavia. On our way back from basking in the slightly salty mist surrounded by model blond haired children in raincoats we came across the Malmo Castle. I had assumed in was a history museum but it's size was so massive for such a small town that I decided to enter to see for myself. First off, the museum is housed inside of a fortress built in the 15th century, then rebuilt in the 16th century (making it the oldest building I have ever been in) and making just the architecture an overwhelming experience in itself. An entire exhibit that seemed to follow a ghost cat (?) around through the fortresses history, which touched on battles, prisoners & plagues to name a few was a highlight/alternative history telling that I really enjoyed. When we finally managed to escape the fortress (literally. the exits were few and far between) we entered into an expertly curated exhibit about the style of the 1920s.

The way this exhibit was mounted was probably the best I have ever seen! A simple scene creating beauty that immersed you into the era in a golden, gold leafed light, the simplicity and art that went into the actual production of this show made the care in curating visible, an art all its own, that I think rarely can be found in American museums. Then we managed to see a few Swedish fine art exhibits including GAN (a Swedish modernist painter) to Max Walter Svanberg (a collage artists and illustrator who was a member of the Imaginisterna sect of surrealists)....and just when we thought it was over...animals! This catle also housed a natural history museum with live animals, taxidermied animals (I saw a Dodo!), an exhibit on the history of human cell production, dinosaurs and, to top it off, a progressive exhibit about Eco Art. Despite the how overwhelmed I was, Malmo managed to make this museum a densely beautiful thing that I have a strong feeling is going to effect the way I think of museum spaces from now on- the craft in curating, the expanse of culture and, judging by the crowds, the obvious hunger to learn something new!