Cooperation with the Herring Era Museum

Thanks to the Bilateral Cooperation Fund, which enables cooperation between countries within the European Economic Area, in recent years the Conservation Department of the National Maritime Museum has had the opportunity to develop contacts with the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Oslo.

Within the framework of the “Promotion of Diversity in Culture and Arts within European Cultural Heritage” programme, at the end of last year this fund facilitated a partnership with another institution: the Herring Era Museum in Siglufjörður, the largest maritime museum in Iceland. On 16-20 January the Director of the Herring Era Museum, Anita Elefsen, and the Collections Manager, Steinnun Sveinsdótir, visited Gdansk.

The guests from Iceland’s visit to the headquarters of the Museum started with Anita Elefsen’s lecture on the establishment of the Icelandic museum, its activity and collections, and ended with a guided tour of the National Maritime Museum’s head office. On 18 January they visited the Vistula River Museum, the Shipwreck Conservation Centre and the Studio Warehouse in Tczew. Our guests were interested particularly in the Conservation Workshop and the Studio Warehouse, because they intended to construct a “Salthouse” storage facility. On the following day they went to the Vistula Lagoon Museum, where they visited the permanent exhibition and had the opportunity to compare a Polish boatyard with a traditional Icelandic one. During the visit, Steinnun Sveinsdótir gave a presentation on warehouse problems in the Herring Era Museum. The visit to the Vistula Lagoon Museum resulted in a plan for the employees of the National Maritime Museum to take part in a boatbuilding course, due to take place at the beginning of April in Siglufjörður, and organise a workshop aimed at preparing one of the historical boats from the collection of the Herring Era Museum for more conservation and reconstruction. Currently formalities related to the signing of a partnership agreement between the National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk and the Herring Era Museum in Siglufjörður are being concluded.

The visit of our guests from Iceland was subsidised with funds from the Bilateral Cooperation Fund – measure “a” for the “Promotion of Diversity in Culture and Arts within European Cultural Heritage” programme within the framework of the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism 2009-2014.