About us

The Nordic Museum Association functions as a network between the cultural, art, and natural history museums of the Nordic countries and the employees at these museums. The association’s main goal is to highlight the Nordic perspective in the museum world and to create connections between museums and networks among professionals.

The Nordic Museum Association, Nordiska museiförbundet (Danish/Norwegian: Nordisk Museumsforbund, Finnish: pohjoismainen museoliitto) is an association that gathers/brings together museum employees from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland with Åland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. Both personal and institutional memberships are available. 

Members from each country form a section, which is led by a working committee.

Key words are Nordic cooperation, interdisciplinarity, and network building. The interdisciplinarity provides participants with great benefits from the conferences and seminars, where common problems are illuminated from different perspectives and contacts are established between Nordic colleagues.

History

The association was founded as the Scandinavian Museum Association in 1915. At the anniversary conference in Copenhagen 100 years later, members voted to change the name to the Nordic Museum Association. The new name better reflects the activities the association conducts today.

Activity

The association organizes conferences every two or three years where a theme is addressed in lectures, seminars, and excursions. The hosting of the conferences rotates.

Between conferences, each section is responsible for its own activities, but joint activities also occur, especially on digital media. In addition to encouraging participation in the Nordic conferences and dialogue seminars, the sections of the different countries organize member meetings with museum visits, lectures, and discussions. 

The Nordic Museum Association is cross-generational, as several members take the opportunity to be active in the association even after retirement.