Vitality – Artefacts made to improve life

A mask used in the ritual dance Hudoq. The dance is part of an agricultural ritual performed by the Long Glaat in Borneo.

Artefacts from the museum's collections sharing a common quality: they are made to improve life.

Permanent exhibition

Opened 14 June 2024

Around the world and throughout the ages, people have sought to live good lives. To do so requires practical, functional, magical, and beautiful tools. The exhibition Vitality – Artefacts made to improve life showcases a selection of objects from the museum's archaeological and ethnographic collections that display the diverse variations of tools and technologies in cultural history.

The museum manages Norway's largest ethnographic and archaeological collections, and the exhibition demonstrates the width of this material heritage. With an eye for technologies and technical devices, the exhibition shows how people create and use tools to better their living conditions and interpersonal relationships. The commonality among the items is that they were meant to enhance the lives of those who used them.

Form and function

The ethnographic objects come from communities in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, South America, and Oceania. The selection reflects the diversity in people's approaches to their surroundings, as well as cultural variations and similarities in the tools' form and function. Each display presents technologies and aids produced with the intention of creating a good life.

Technologies throughout 10,000 years

The archaeological items reveal significant technologies used throughout the first 10,000 years of human history in the area that is now Norway. This included ways of turning a stone into an efficient tool, new metal technologies, methods of obtaining food, and clothing. While the tools were utilitarian, they were also designed with consideration for their appearance and what they could convey about their owner.

The ethnographic and archaeological collections originate from different time periods and geographical areas. The methodological basis and collecting purposes of these fields are not of the same nature, and therefore the exhibition's two parts illuminate different themes related to human life.

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