Nordic Moments showcases one of the Nordic region’s largest collections of historical photography. Through a changing display of images, the exhibition offers personal and cultural perspectives on life in the Nordic countries. Opening 17 October 2025.
The Nordiska Museet holds around six million photographs – an extraordinary collection documenting life, work, housing, traditions and everyday moments across Sweden and the Nordic region, from the late 19th century to today. These images are a unique resource for understanding how people have lived, shaped, and shared their environments through time.
Until now, only a small fraction of the archive has been shown – inside or outside the museum.
Nordic Moments is presented across seven rooms. Here, themes, photographers, formats and eras shift and evolve in a series of temporary exhibitions, beginning on 17 October 2025.
Our first main theme Metamorphoses, invites you on a dreamlike journey through memory, time and chemical transformation. We present images whose negatives have been carefully preserved through our major digitisation initiative. These photographs are shown alongside highlights from the collections and works by noted photographers such as K W Gullers, Sten Didrik Bellander and Hélène Edlund.
Metamorphoses presents a selection of photographs that have undergone a visual transformation – shaped by memory, time and chemical reactions.
When around 100,000 photo negatives were damaged by water, a major rescue effort was launched to preserve, restore and digitise them. But in the process, something unexpected happened: new images began to emerge. The natural decay of the materials – along with chemical changes – added unexpected layers to the photographs, giving them a haunting, dreamlike quality.
Cracks, rips, holes and haze now ripple across the images. Some motifs seem to have melted or blurred, partly hidden behind abstract forms. Others have been distorted into something unrecognisable. None of these effects were deliberately created by human hands – yet many resemble works of art.
These transformed images can feel like portals into emotional landscapes – into memory, into dreamlike worlds, or into places we can no longer return to.
In Metamorphoses, comedian and author Zinat Pirzadeh reflects on the photographs and the memories, places and inner worlds they evoke in her. On display from 17 October–May 2026.
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Room 1: Here we showcase images from the collections based on a specific theme or highlight the work of an individual photographer. The theme often reflects the current season and the customs that come with it.
The photographs capture everyday life and moments of change in our society – always with time as a quiet companion, and the Nordic region as both setting and mirror.
Foto: K W Gullers / Nordiska museet
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Room 2: Explore a collection of digital photo albums, each offering a new perspective from the collections. Themes range from the shifting seasons to the rhythm of everyday life – and the memories that shape the cultural history told at the Nordiska Museet. Every selection is carefully curated by our museum curators, with short texts that frame the photographs and offer thoughtful context. Browse the stories with a simple tap – take a seat, and let yourself travel through time and image..
Foto: Gösta Glase, ur Nordiska museets samlingar
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Room 3. Photographs chosen for their aesthetic power. Some were taken with great care by professional photographers, others captured in an instant by amateurs. What unites them is the shared desire to preserve a feeling – in that precise moment. The works shown here are what we consider the treasures of the collections.
Foto: Gösta Glase, Nordiska museet
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Room 4–7: Through decay, chemical reactions or contact with water, these photographs have taken on a new and unexpected dimension. What we see on the surface sometimes resembles art – yet no human hand deliberately created the abstract forms. They are the result of time passing and the material’s own will, drawing you into a dreamlike journey..
Foto: Sten Didrik Bellander, Nordiska museet
