Exhibitions

FY2020 was both the calm before the storm and a time filled with challenges that ultimately inspired innovation and achievement. The highlight was an exciting, self-produced extra/ordinary exhibition celebrating ASI’s 90th anniversary year.

The Vikings Begin May 17 – October 27, 2019 Organized by Uppsala University and its museum Gustavianum, The Vikings Begin featured dozens of early Viking age artifacts and was one of ASI’s most successful exhibitions ever with over 35,000 attendees over fourmonths. The exhibition broadened visitors’ understanding of the Vikings as skilled traders and far-flung navigators. ASI hosted Vikings- related programming including University Day, that drew in new and bigger audiences.

Time Tested. Tradition Approved. Holidays at the American Swedish Institute November 16, 2019 – January 12, 2020 Inspired by ASI’s 90th anniversary, this exhibition marked the years since 1929, when Swan Turnblad donated the Mansion to ASI. Guest curators representing Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and our IrishAmerican guests from Celtic Junction, designed installations reflecting each country’s distinctive holiday traditions from the 1920s into the future.

The Mansion dining room during the extra/ordinary exhibition

Frederick D. Somers: Borders & Betweens January 21 – March 22, 2020, Gallery Talk, January 22, 6 – 8 p.m. Northfield-based artist Frederick D. Somers’ peaceful and sensitive oil and pastel paintings reflected themes from his time in Sweden, and the land and woods near his home.

ASI Family Gallery: Water, sky and me February 29, 2020 – July 5, 2021 The ASI Family Gallery called on the ocean and sky to spark the imagination in a play space designed and developed with Stina Wirsén, the award-winning Swedish author and illustrator, who also partnered with Bea Szenfeld in ASI’s 2021 exhibition Papier.

extra/ordinary: The American Swedish Institute. At Play. February 29 – July 5, 2020, (intermittently closed and extended to February 2021) This imaginative new exhibition produced by the American Swedish Institute to celebrate its 90th anniversary, explored 29 objects from ASI’s permanent collection and the untold stories behind them. The exhibition invited visitors to also experience the Turnblad Mansion in new ways through such surprises as a 20-foot-tall inflated Dala horse and a ballroom with a pit full of balls. extra/ordinary paired historical artifacts with original watercolor paintings and ink illustrations by the Minnesota mother-son artist team of Tara Sweeney (also an ASI instructor) and Nate Christopherson. Their artwork formed the basis of the A to Zåäö: Playing with History at the American Swedish Institute book (University of Minnesota Press), which inspired the exhibition and in turn was inspired by a 2016 watercolor workshop taught by Sweeney which later expanded into a residency with a 2017 Minnesota State Arts Board grant. “My parents and I visited the museum and the exhibits today. It was a lovely morning. I really appreciated the COVID precautions, the exhibits following the art from the book and using items from the collection. I was telling my mom that growing up visiting the museum, I’ve seen that spinning wheel dozens of times and this time seeing it with the art from Tara Sweeney and Nate Christopherson’s book made it new again. And getting to meet her today made my day!” — Beth Jensen

“The Salon of the Turnblad Mansion became a public studio where our progress could be viewed by visitors…whose stories and questions delighted and inspired us.” —Tara Sweeney

Swedish Dads March 28 – July 5, 2020 When ASI closed because of the COVID pandemic in March 2020, Johan Bävman’s sensitive photographs of Swedish dads who choose to stay at home with their children were not only shifted to a web-based exhibition with text in multiple languages but, in an innovative move, to ASI’s outside historic fence to increase community access.

We Are the Story — We Who Believe in Freedom Quilts Exhibition September 10, 2020 – June 12, 2021 After Minneapolis became the epicenter of protests following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, ASI hosted a free quilts exhibition in Osher Gallery. It was part of a series, created by the Textile Center and Women of Color Quilters Network with curator Carolyn Mazloomi, that addressed issues of police brutality and racism.