SCROLLS - nine digital guides to the Jewish Museum
October 08, 2020

-"The digital guides provide subjective entrances and visualizations to this important institution and place, which we at Beckmans are very happy to collaborate with in this project. The Jewish Museum is a place and institution that has an important function in society and that has shown great openness and generosity towards the collaboration with our students, especially since the digital technology the students have worked with can be difficult to predict the end result with, says Peter Ström, lecturer in the Visual Communication program at Beckmans.

Digital technologies that create multiple layers for the Jewish story in Sweden 

In the project, various digital techniques have been explored to make visible parts of the museum and the Jewish story in Sweden in new ways. Augmented Reality, for example, adds an additional dimension to ornaments found in the museum as well as to the story of the white buses that rescued Jews from concentration camps in the final stages of World War II. Another guide instead investigates how a nearly fifteen-year-old physical exhibition can be boiled down in digital pocket format. 

Other guides take advantage of the digital possibilities for co-creation. In this way, for example, the people behind the stories in the museum environment are brought to life by inviting visitors to leave a virtual message, a guest book entry, which as it fills up, comments on what it means to be Swedish and Jewish today. In another guide, the subject of faith is explored through the millennial Jewish tradition of chavruta,to discuss together, interpret and understand why we do what we do. In the project, volunteers have left voicemails where they reflect on faith and thus create a flow of interpretations or a kind of chavruta remotely. 

-"The museum has a rich tradition of allowing contemporary artists to contribute new perspectives on the Swedish-Jewish experience. Therefore, it feels fantastic to now get help from tomorrow's brightest minds in product design and communication to reinterpret and portray the Jewish history in Sweden, says Christina Gamstorp, Director of the Jewish Museum. 

Open opening October 8

The results will be presented at an open opening on 8 October, with the aim of becoming a permanent feature of the museum's exhibition. All digital guides work on a regular smartphone and are available on www.ninescrolls.se from October 8 at 13.00.

About the Jewish Museum 

The Jewish Museum opened in high-profile forms on National Day 2019 in Sweden's oldest preserved synagogue at Själagårdsgatan 19 in The Old Town, Stockholm. The basic exhibition Jews & Sweden weaves together the history of Jews in Sweden, which holds many experiences of finding their place in a new country, with the Jewish world of thought and the practice of Judaism. Artistic design also has an obvious place in the museum's idea, as a reminder of the link between then and now. In 2020, the museum was nominated for the prestigious museum of the year award by Sweden's museums and the Swedish ICOM (International Council of Museums).