Swedish News:

More space for Vasa. Unique Black Power stills celebrated in the US. Queen Silvia in the US.  

  • More space for Vasa
    It will soon be time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the recovery of the Swedish warship Vasa. As a special treat, it has finally been decided to add on to the Vasa Museum, construction work will begin next fall and the inauguration is planned to take place in 2013. After being recovered in 1961, Vasa was taken to the Wasa Shipyard, where she was sprayed with polyethylene glycol (PEG) in order not to dry. After 333 years at the bottom of the sea, Vasa was in surprisingly good condition but would have quickly deteriorated if the hull had been allowed to dry. Thus Vasa was sprayed with glycol for 17 years, followed by 9 years of slow drying. In 1988, Vasa left her temporary home to be towed to the half-finished Vasa Museum which officially opened to the public in 1990. The Vasa Museum was created by architects Marianne Dahlbäck and Göran Månsson with dimensions to allow 1600 visitors at a time, and today the museum has an average of over one million visitors per year. After the add-on to the museum, 2000 people can visit Vasa at a time.
    www.vasamuseet.se/en/

  • Unique Black Power stills celebrated in the US
    Documentary filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson dived to the bottom of archives of SVT (Swedish Television) and found historically unique photos. Now his films “The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975” is being celebrated in the US. “This material has only been shown once on Swedish television, and when I saw it I almost felt it was my duty to show the pictures to the rest of the world,” says Göran Hugo Olsson. “The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975” has been shown at the Sundance film festival in Utah, where it was awarded the prize for best editing, and it was recently shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, to a cheering audience. “Mainstream TV in the US at this time in history, focused on entertainment. There were almost no documentaries or debate programs. Whenever these people were shown on TV it was in connection with trials or crime. Nobody asked why or what they fought for. That way these pictures are unique to Americans and you can tell that whenever the film is being shown there,” Olsson continues. He hopes that in the future, the film will be made available at schools and universities.

  • Queen Silvia in the US
    Queen Silvia had to cancel a trip to Africa when she caught a nasty flu virus while in France. Luckily, she is now feeling better and is in the US where she just took part in the World Childhood Foundation’s Charity Dinner in Hillsboro Beach, FL, along with her daughter Madeleine. It was the first time that Childhood decided to hold its gala dinner in FLordia, and the event, which took place at the home of honorary consul Per Olof Lööf and his wife Åsa-Lena (current president of SWEA International) attracted a new audience. Among the guests were Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik, and his former au-pair Elin Nordegren (ex-wife of Tiger Woods) as well as Anders Bagge and Andreas Carlsson (well-known faces from the Swedish TV-show “Idol”). On the menu was salad, filet mignon, and lemon cake for dessert. American crooner Josh Groban entertained. Silvia will now travel to New York where she’ll receive her award for Health and Human Rights at the Mandarin Hotel. “I’m very happy, it’s nice they thought of me,” she said. The Queen will remain a few days in the Big Apple after the award ceremony to spend time with her daughter Princess Madeleine.
    www.childhood.org