Exhibitions

The thousand-strong army of birds from Damaraland, Namibia, has been here since 1888. The collection is not only a natural science sensation but is also a strange, dramatic story about voyages of discovery that started in the forests of Värmland, to continue inland in southern Africa. We can follow the British bear hunter and zoologist Llewelyn Lloyd through the Swedish winter forests, and the zoologists and traders Charles John Andersson and Axel Eriksson on their dramatic expeditions and trade journeys in Africa during the 19th century. In the exhibition you can also learn how to pack equipment for a real voyage of discovery.

Iset-Min’s sarcophagus, mummy masks, twigs from the herb garden of Gethsemane, a piece of wood from the Mount of Olives, old photographs, travel documents and travelogues, all closely watched over by the guard, Anubis. The collections in this section reflect the early tourist travels made by the museum's founder, Adolf Andersohn, in the second half of the 19th century. Andersohn was one of Vänersborg's first tourists and made trips around Europe every year, where he visited German spas, the major capitals, art galleries, castles and museums as well as the world exhibition in London. This exhibition follows Andersohn on his longest journey, referred to as the Travels in the Orient alongside the Mediterranean in 1867-68.

Sweden's only alligator caught in the wild is here, alongside Prince Wilhelm's moose together with birds, mammals, fish, minerals and scientific instruments in what was once a study collection for Vänersborg’s secondary school. In the Journey of Knowledge exhibition, you can follow the history of science and natural science collections from the time of Carl Linnaeus in the mid-18th century to the time when the museum was founded in 1885. It also provides you with an insight into the life of a pupil at a national school or a girls' school at the end of the 19th century and the school subjects that were studied at that time. You can look at the classrooms as they were or arrange your own exhibition.

The museum's founder, Adolf Andersohn, grew up in modest circumstances but had the ambition at an early age of somehow supporting his hometown. He also had a growing fascination for art and culture. The exhibition called The Social Journey shows Andersohn's magnificent collection of glass and ceramics, in the same format as it was when the museum opened in 1891. This exhibition illustrates Andersohn's interest in art and culture as well as his social commitment to providing cultural objects for everyone to see. In the detailed sections of the exhibition you can follow Andersohn's own social journey as well as the social journey that Vänersborg and Sweden were making in the 19th century.

In the Attendant Accommodation one can experience what it was like when the janitor lived here with his family in Vänersborg museum. Sure, there were opening hours for the museum, but many citizens just tapped on the museum´s window to get in, since the attendant´s family was at home anyway.

In the museum´s basement, one can visit the last recidence of the poet Birger Sjöberg. This is what his apartment looked like in Helsingborg in 1929, just before he died.

There was once a dream that Swedish seeds, with their renowned vigour, would be planted all over Europe and that seed cultivation would become an important business for small farmers, crofters and poor houses in the cities. In the summer of 1879, farmers were encouraged to collect samples of seeds from their cultivated plants in specially made glass containers, which were sealed and put in an exhibition in Borås the following year. The exhibition, which was to arouse a lot of interest in Swedish seed cultivation, was moved to the county governor’s residence in Vänersborg. The collection was transferred to the museum after its construction, and it now provides unique documentation and source material for a large number of long-lost Swedish cultivated plants.