Swedish Museums Are Full Of Surprises

Typically, museums abroad serve as art history venues, with lots of iconic paintings and sculptures. Sweden takes a different approach where their museums revolve around the unique and the bizarre. Their Vasa Museum, a modern art museum, features many contemporary art pieces in the abstract art era. There's also the Fairy Tale Museum, which is mostly a kid's attraction but that didn't stop my friends from climbing all the the playing structures and beating little kids down the slides. The museum my friends and I visited was a Swedish cultural museum called the Nordiska Museum.

From the outside, the Nordiska looks like some sort of Swedish palace, which I'm sure is what it used to be seeing as the inside was just as glorious. The main exhibit this season is Swedish fashion over the years. They covered traditional folkland garb to the current 'cybergoth' scene. It was definitely an eclectic collection for such an old museum. Also featured was an impressive photography section (shoutout to Prof. Beermink!) with a wide collection of old cameras and photographs. They even had an original daguerrotype alongside a 50's Swedish housewives photo collection. Segwaying into my favorite part of the museum was the 'Men in Bathing Suits' exhibit. This was basically hilarious portraits of men's swimwear, from  old-fashioned onesies to leapord thongs. There was even a wooden diagram of different tanlines a man can acquire when wearing different kinds of suits. Very worthwhile, I highly reccomend it.