Built with Fish: History Lessons at the Museum of Hafnarfjörður (S01/E09)

How do you keep history fresh at a municipal history museum, even when many people in your audience have lived in that small town their entire lives? How do you best serve your local audience while still offering something interesting for tourists? These are the challenges the Hafnarfjörður Museum is trying to solve. The museum is housed in seven historic buildings in Hafnarfjörður, an old harbor town in the southwest of Iceland. In this episode, museum director Björn Pétursson gives me a tour of the main building, Pakkhusið, and shares some of the museum's recent successes and challenges.

Music in this episode is by FÚNI.

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Museums in Strange Places is a podcast for people who love museums, stories, culture, and exploring the world. This year, the podcast focuses on museums in Iceland. 

Subscribe to Museums in Strange Places and you can expect fascinating conversations with Icelandic museum professionals, world class exhibitions, private museums in gas stations, an introduction to Icelanders and their knack for storytelling, and a unique window into the inner workings of museums on this strange but wonderful little island.

Get bonus material from each episode (photos, further reading, links) at hhethmon.com. Use the hashtag #MuseumsinStrangePlaces on social media.

The podcast is hosted by Hannah Hethmon, an American Fulbright Fellow living in Reykjavík. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @hannah_rfh or on the web at hhethmon.com. Hannah has a BA in English Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park and an MA from the University of Iceland in Medieval Icelandic Studies. After completing her MA, she spent two years as the Marketing Coordinator for the American Association for State and Local History, a Nashville-based national nonprofit dedicated to serving history museums, historical societies, and other public history institutions.