Museum of World Culture — Attraction in Göteborgs Stad

This is barely a museum. Let me explain.

As soon as me and my wife entered the building we noticed young children running around all over the entrance area. At first we thought that there is a class of preschoolers visiting from a local kindergarten, but a quick look around gave no signs of an organized tour or anything that would indicate that the hordes of unsupervised children shared any relationship. The only common denominator seemed to be an unbridled wish to be louder than the next one.

Noticing that the visit might not turn out as we had hoped we made our way up a flight of stairs to a restaurant in the hope of steeling our nerves with a cup of coffee and a meal. Pleasantly surprised we found an interesting looking buffet( although I had an uneasy feeling about the suitability of an open buffet with such a large crowd of unsupervised children running amok ). We paid and stood in line for the food when my feelings were confirmed. One mother was scouting the buffet with an obviously sick toddler in her arms. After the child sneezed all over the buffet enough times for the mucus to dribble down it's face she must have decided that bringing her sick toddler with her, up to the food wasn't the brightest idea and so she walked off. I turned to my wife and we agreed that things are back to normal after two years of covid restrictions. We shouldn't be too alarmed. After all, the entire planet is made of dirt, what's a little more going to harm? As I turned back towards the food a boy was occupied trying to fit as a wooden spoon into his mouth ( the one everyone had to use to serve themselves the chopped mushrooms ). When his father told him to hurry up he stuck his grubby little hands right into the bowl of sliced oranges and ham-fistedly grabbed as many as he could before walking off.

Our appetites could barely be contained at this point...

After finishing our infested meals to the sound of shrieks and shouts of "Du är dum!!" and "Jag vill titta på tiktok!", we continued up to the 4th floor where the Mexico exhibition was held.

The explanation of the exhibited pieces was in Swedish and Spanish, so I began quietly translating the text for my wife who is neither Swedish nor Spanish. Every sentence became a minutes long ordeal as I had to stop every time a child threw a temper tantrum or the next toddler decided to fill the room with never ending crying at a volume that makes a passing ambulance sound like a whisper. As we moved on to the exhibition in the center of the room we were immediately interrupted by a young girl who banged her fingers on the exhibitions accompanying info-touchscreen until she disappointedly called out to her parents that "Det finns inte youtube på denna!" and ran off.

We struggled our way through a few more of the pieces but it was impossible to focus on the artefacts on display and it became absolutely impossible to have any piece of mind that would allow you to appreciate the artefacts cultural value and importance.

We left with a feeling of not having understood much of the story behind the pieces on exhibit.

The museum doesn't cultivate an atmosphere that supports learning, reflection and appreciation of culture... Which begs the question, why should other museums lend their pieces to the Gothenburg museum of world culture? There is barely a chance for the visitors to truly appreciate any of it. Only unnecessary risk in transporting their priceless pieces to a state sponsored playground where they're protected from drooling four year old's by a thin piece of glass.

Many reviewers are praising the museum as a great place to go play with their children. But that's not what a museum is for... At least not to my understanding.

The Cambridge English dictionary describes a museum like this: "A building where objects of historical, scientific, or artistic interest are kept".

It fulfills these criteria.

But a large part of the clientele that it tries to attract is neither historically, scientifically nor artistically interested. They are 4 years old and want to...

Today we had a very nice visit in the museum on TILLSAMMANS and liked how the museum talks about empathy, being together and argue in the kids perspective l. Honestly this exhibition was on high level that we were very impressed. then it turned out to be an irony.

as we tried to enjoy the same experience in the world of game exhibition. Our 2 year old got agitated that he couldn’t play the street fighter game ( not suitable for his age). A two year old crying and screaming, I would assume this is “Normal” for a museum which just showcased a best example of empathy.

A staff called Johan came to tell me to take the kid out. Which we tried to do. But my two year old was running around and refused to go. The only way to take him out is to forcely carry him. Then Johan came and asked us again to take him out again within 2mins of told me first time. My two year old understood the has been told to leave by an adult, got even more agitated. And took us 30mins to get him calm down.

When we tried to ask the reception what is the rule of the museum, just when they tried to show some empathy, this Johan came out from basement to reception, with a body langue and facial expression which is completely opposed to empathy.

He asked me to :” listen! Listen! “ And I said this is a very stressful situation for us. Well, guess, how much empathy he shows? Johan replied: “this is a very stressful situation for us! When a child cries, it is the parent responsibility to calm him down. I am trying to tell you this is the rule of the museum”

What rule? To forcefully carry the child away? Or maybe a friendly face with more empathy with the child and the parent.

There are two staff in the reception who witness the whole thing and told me Johan is the manager in this place.

Well, I stop listening and talking to him because I was completely in shock how a museum manager could talk in such a manner, especially a museum which has a mission to help people understand connect.

Honestly, this incident has completely destroyed all the good memories we had in the togetherness exhibition.

We are here to experience the exhibition, not to be taught...

I am actually kind of disappointed. The museum is very small, they have about 5 showcases each for some 5-6 representative (?) cultural spaces. To be fair, you also have access to the children's exhibition and to the temporary exhibition (which, when I went, was about Mediterranean football fans and consisted of fan articles and some info on how they relate to political issues). Neither were interesting for me. I don't think you can expect people to pay an entry fee of 10€ for that. Also, many interactive parts were not well kept (such as "tie a ribbon" with no ribbons left), the displays that are the only possibility to learn more about the objects in the showcases are unusably slow and the headphones for listening to sounds and explanations were broken more often than not, which further decreased the value you can get from the small exhibition. Apart from that, I was also a bit puzzled by the uncritical representation of missionary work in the Congo, presenting white people as saviours and civilisators and without at least mentioning the brutal suffering during...