Exhibition sheds light on dark chapter in Swedish history

By Lennart Simonsson May 18, 2010, 15:26 GMT

Stockholm - A discrete sign urges visitors to 'roam around respectfully' at a new exhibit that translates as (In)Human at the Ethnographic Museum of Stockholm.

Passing through a row of shelves, the visitor soon realizes the reason for the request. The exhibit includes human remains, such as a skull that was once part of a Swedish high school's collections.

Together with the Living History Forum, the Ethnographic Museum said it aims to shed light on some of the darker sides of recent Swedish history featuring how researchers and explorers in the late 1800s and early 1900s deliberately desecrated graves and stole the remains of indigenous people.

The remains were transported from faraway locations including Australia, New Guinea and South America to Sweden, where they were measured and compared with other skulls and bones.

'Collecting skeletons and skulls was all part of an effort and interest in trying to chart the cradle of mankind,' Ethnographic Museum head Anders Bjorklund said at a showing of the exhibition.

Another showcase has clothes used by a Pawnee Indian, known as White Fox, who died in 1875 of tuberculosis in the Swedish west coast city Gothenburg.

His body was used by researchers who even removed the skin. The facial skin was displayed at another museum before it was hidden away in storage shelves similar to those the visitor passes through to the exhibition.

In the 1990s, the skin and other remains were returned to the man's relatives in the United States.

The Ethnographic Museum has in recent years sought to return other remains, Bjorklund said, mentioning that some 15 skulls were returned in 2003 and 2004 to Aboriginal tribes in Australia.

However, the collections 'still include the remains of 800 people - mostly from indigenous peoples,' he said.

Bjorklund said the museum hopes that knowledge about the existence of these remains will be disseminated to indigenous peoples, and contribute to the future repatriation of other remains.

Other aspects of the same ambition to categorize and chart human beings, and so-called social engineering are highlighted at the Living History Forum.

White showcases dominate the hall at the Living History Forum in Stockhom's Old Town - the colour is reminiscent of hospital wards or laboratories.

Visitors are reminded that Sweden in 1921 set up a national institute on racial biology in a decision backed by almost all parties in parliament.

Instruments used in the field work that included measuring skulls of ethnic groups are displayed along with photos and other records.

The exhibit also has sections on the thousands of people in Sweden with various handicaps or social problems who underwent sterilization programmes that ended in the early 1970s.

'It is not really strange to want to classify people,' Eskil Franck, head of the Living History Forum, said. 'It is part of life. But there is a line when it transforms into downgrading that in turn leads to discrimination.'

The aim is to make visitors become aware of what kind of values determine these processes, Franck added.

The exhibition (In)Human is set to run until the spring of 2011 when it will be downsized and shown in a touring exhibition by the Swedish Travelling Exhibitions agency.

Internet: www.etnografiskamuseet.se, www.levandehistoria.se