Exhibition stand
An exhibition stand from the 1880s was ready to be burned on a scrap heap in Bodø. A random passerby stopped, looked closer, and saved what is now one of the main objects in the Made in Bodø exhibition.
It all started with a Sunday walk in the early 1970s. Along Langstranda in Bodø, the area at the time was characterized by industry, workshops and warehouses. In the landscape there was also an unusually large scrap heap.
Sea Bird A/S had just taken over part of the old premises. They had cleaned out and piled a large load of materials, sea equipment, barrels, crates, scrap and junk on a pile to be burned.
– I don't know what it was that did it, but I stopped and examined the scrap heap more closely. In the midst of all the gray and dirty things, I saw something that stood out. It looked like a kind of wooden construction kit in several layers, painted in a very distinctive and bright green color – a shade that did not resemble ordinary colors in such surroundings, wrote Kaare Nordahl in Gammelt og Godt , the member magazine of the Nordland branch of the Association for the Preservation of Historical Monuments, in 1991.
He began to carefully look for more pieces. Gradually he realized that these were not just random pieces of wood. It must have been a stand, a display piece. There were carved details, columns and shelves, and traces of something having been attached to the surfaces.
As the pieces were gradually put together, the motifs emerged: Helgeland, Hammerfest and coastal landscapes with sea, weather and wind. The design and craftsmanship showed that this was made to be exhibited, not thrown away.
The clues pointed to world exhibitions and fairs, where Norway and Nordland were to be presented to an international audience. On the surface of the stand was also the name "Nordland Preserving", a Bodø company from the 1880s. Perhaps it was precisely canned food, fish and northern Norwegian coastal industries that were once highlighted on the stand.
From left:
When the mount was found around 1990, it was marked by wear, damage and missing parts. Photo: Kaare Nordahl.
Cover of Gammelt og Godt , member magazine for the Nordland branch of the Association for the Preservation of Norwegian Historical Monuments, 1991.
Stock photo of another exhibition stand.
Stellar object
In 2024, the team at Nordlandsmuseet began work on selecting objects for the Made in Bodø exhibition at the Bodø City Museum. They wanted to highlight the city's industrial history.
– My colleague Erika Softing mentioned a large wooden object, a kind of “exhibition furniture”, which was supposedly used by Ragnar Schølberg’s company. We thought this could be a star object in the exhibition. But what was it really? says conservator Sylwia Mosko at the Nordlandsmuseet.
The museum's registration system had no information about the object. So Mosko contacted Heinz Kusch, who might have knowledge of it. Kusch worked for many years in the cultural heritage department of Nordland County Municipality before retiring in 2016.
Heinz worked on this object himself and remembered it well. In the 1990s, Heinz and volunteers restored the object to its former condition. They worked according to the conservation principle of preserving the primary traces and preserved as much of the original material as possible.
The object also had to be structurally stable, and some new material therefore had to be added. All polychromy that could be salvaged was preserved on the surface. Where decoration was missing, it was retouched with traditional linseed oil-based paint.
According to Mosko, the restored exhibition stand was briefly displayed at the Bodø City Museum in the 1990s, before being dismantled and put into museum storage.
They transported all the parts to the City Museum and laid them out like a 3D puzzle. Heinz Kusch put Mosko in touch with Kai Nordahl. As a young man, he had helped his father, who had volunteered during the original conservation work. Now, thirty years later, Kai would help assemble the mount.
Pictures above:
A 3D puzzle that eventually became a star object in the exhibition. Here during assembly at the City Museum. Photo: Sylwia Mosko.
All the parts were well marked, and the work turned out to be easier than feared.
– We made some mistakes, but they were easy to fix, and after four hours we were done. And there it was. We were missing a few details, a few screws and some decorations, but almost everything was there, says Mosko.
After a decade in storage, the mount needed a thorough cleaning and a refresh of the paint.
“The icing on the cake was placing fish boxes on it, just like they did in their heyday,” Mosko sums up. She describes the mount as an object with an unusual history, and thanks Heinz and Kai for making the work possible.
The fitter, which once lay on a scrap heap and was close to being lost, stands today as a testament to Bodø's role as a trading and industrial city and to the value of seeing what others call scrap with new eyes.
Pictures above:
Exhibition stand as a central object of the exhibition Made in Bodø. January 2026, Bodø City Museum. Photo: Dan Mariner
