(Exhibition text in English, referring to a QR code in the exhibition)
Stars
Film is the symbol of modern life in the modern city. It is a young art form, open to experimentation and a new kind of storytelling. During the 1920s, movie stars become major celebrities. Cinemas are built in the new Art Deco and neoclassical styles.
In the early decades of the 20th century, the arts find new forms of expression. Ballet is perhaps the last to break with tradition, but when it finally does, it is revolutionary. The Swedish Ballet’s avant-garde performances attract great attention all over the world.
Weekly ladies’ magazines, with female editors and writers, are a new phenomenon. The female writer is portrayed as a young, tomboyish woman, committed to women’s rights, with a pen in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Soul
The question of women as ordained ministers in the Church of Sweden is raised in the 1920s. Resistance is great. But views on religion are changing. For almost a thousand years, the Church has monitored and influenced people’s lives, but its role in public life is diminishing. Spirituality and religious beliefs are increasingly becoming part of people’s private sphere.
The changing role of religion in the 20th century is usually described in terms of secularisation and individualisation. As society changes, new popular movements emerge. Huge numbers of people are drawn to revivalism, or to the temperance or labour movements.