Exhibitions

Voyages with the Chief & Sally Jones

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 11:27:50 +0000

The latest special exhibition in Mariehamn, at the Åland Maritime Museum, is Voyages with the Chief and Sally Jones. It was opened in September by 30 fourth-graders and in the first week more than 200 school children saw the exhibition.

It is the beautiful description of shipping and seafaring life in Jacob Wegelius’ award-winning book The Legend of Sally Jones that sparked the idea and forms the basis for this exhibition.

The book's protagonist is a gorilla, Sally Jones. As an infant, she is captured by poachers and grows up among humans, far away from the wild jungle where she was born. Sally Jones is bought and sold, used and let down several times. There is a lot of tragedy in the story, but it is not only gloom. Sally Jones also gets to experience friendship and belonging, mainly through the Chief, with whom she sails across the seven seas.

The exhibition focuses on various maritime themes in the book, such as trade routes, work on board, harbour life and smuggling. In the book, one can also perceive a story of alienation and homesickness. With this exhibition, we want to stimulate thoughts about what a home really is and how to find it.

The museum has created a spectacular environment in the special exhibition gallery, including a 9 meter long ship, a sailor-town bar and a jungle. It is a tactile exhibition which is to be experienced with all senses. Its physical form appeals greatly to children, but the content is also thought-provoking for adults. In line with the museum’s policy, the exhibition is accessible to all and trilingual (Swedish, Finnish and English)

Voyages with the Chief and Sally Jones is the Åland Maritime Museum’s largest ever special exhibition and will be on display until March 2015. It is also a benchmark of the museum’s ambitions for future exhibitions and public programming.

Some views of the exhibition, including author and illustrator Jakob Wegelius with a group of visiting school children and Katarina Gäddnä and museum director Hanna Hagmark-Cooper enjoying a tea party and Jakob’s book with another group of schoolchildren.

The War of 1812 on the Chesapeake

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Maryland, USA

A major exhibition entitled Navigating Freedom: The War of 1812 on the Chesapeake is open at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) in St. Michaels, Maryland, USA. The exhibit’s opening coincided with the bicentennial of the British attack on St. Michaels, which occurred in 1813.

The exhibit explores the impact of the War of 1812 on the people of the Chesapeake - black and white Americans, militiamen, Baltimore merchants, and British sailors who found opportunity or misfortune amid the conflict. Their diaries, artefacts, portraits, and articles reveal their personal stories, and the ways the War of 1812 on the Chesapeake challenged American ideas about freedom.

Battle cruiser's world cruise

Sun, 12 May 2013 02:13:01 +0000

Battle cruiser HMS New Zealand, gifted by the people of New Zealand to Great Britain and the Royal Navy in 1909, undertook a world tour in 1913.

The ship sailed from England on 6 February 1913 and arrived in New Zealand on 12 April. Proudly displayed as a symbol of New Zealand’s nationhood, HMS New Zealand visited 18 ports around the country during the three month visit. It is estimated that almost half of the then population of New Zealand saw or visited the ship during her stay.

To mark this significant event the National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy, in collaboration with the Auckland War Memorial Museum, has created an online resource that brings the historic 1913 HMS New Zealand 10-month round-the-world world cruise alive.

Gale warning on tour

Sat, 11 May 2013 07:41:41 +0000

Dutch company, Flying Focus, has selected 25 of their best aerial photographs of ships in rough seas for exhibition by maritime museums.

For more than 25 years, maritime aerial photographer Herman IJsseling, from Flying Focus, has regularly made flights to photograph ships under the most difficult weather conditions imaginable. He has even flown and worked in force 10 gales.

Even after all these years, IJsseling finds it is still a privilege to be able to fly above the sea in such stormy weather conditions. He says; ‘It is always fascinating to see what storm force winds can do to the sea, and what severe conditions vessels have to cope with’.

IJsseling has now made a selection of 25 of his best storm photographs available for exhibition to the public at maritime museums around the world.

Boarding! Polish Maritime Museum exhibition

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:15:08 +0000

The 385th anniversary of the naval Battle of Oliva between ships of the Polish and Swedish navies is being marked by the Polish Maritime Museum in a temporary exhibition – ‘TO BOARD!’ – in the Granaries on Olowianka Island in Gdansk. The exhibition highlights one of the oldest and most effective techniques used for centuries in naval battles – boarding the enemy’s ships.

Visitors to the exhibition learn about how naval battles were fought through examples of selected battles over the centuries – from antiquity to present times. ‘TO BOARD!’ presents such naval battles as the Battle of Salamis between the Greeks and Persians on September 28th, 480 BC; the Battle of Vistula Lagoon, fought between ships of the Teutonic Order and the Prussian Confederation, allied to the King of Poland, on 15th September, 1463; and the Battle of Oliva on November 28th, 1627. The boarding activities of Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, in the region of the so-called ‘Horn of Africa’, are also highlighted in the exhibition.

The Burgerhout Panorama

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 09:15:26 +0000

Discovery of the second largest maritime paintings in the Netherlands

The Burgerhout Panorama went on display at the Rotterdam Maritime Museum in February 2013. The three paintings are two metres high and between six and ten metres wide, making them the largest maritime paintings in the Netherlands after the Mesdag Panorama.

The rolled-up paintings had been in the museum's depot for years. Eighteen months ago, a place was found where they could be unrolled safely and experts then discovered three tableaux of great historical importance.

Re-opening of the Naval Museum, Varna, Bulgaria

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 02:09:18 +0000

The history of the museum dates from 1883 when officers of the Danubian Fleet in Rousse started a collection of marine relics. The first public exhibition was set up in 1923 and until 1955 was known to the public as a ‘Marine Museum’.

In 1955 management of the museum transferred to the Defence Ministry and the collection was housed in the present building, re-named as a ‘Naval Museum’.

In April 2012, the museum re-opened after a painstaking renovation of the exterior and interior of the building.