Kvinnohistoriska

Kvinnohistoriska is a living archive without walls

Kvinnohistoriska is a museum without a building of its own. Since 2019 they have highlighted women's history and contemporary issues in squares, libraries, on milk cartons and online. Their work contributes to a richer account of history and carries a simple but powerful idea: women's history belongs everywhere.

Challenge

Without a physical museum building, Kvinnohistoriska needed a way to archive and preserve important objects digitally, and to collect stories and material directly from the public. Collecting was a central part of how they worked, often in direct connection with exhibitions.

The tool therefore needed to:

• work in the physical space, for example through QR codes
• let the public make their own contributions linked to specific exhibitions
• build an archive that can form the basis of future exhibitions
• make it possible to publish material both in digital exhibitions and on an easy-to-navigate archive website
• handle material securely and correctly, with the option to sync to K-samsök

Solution – archive and exhibition website in one

Together with Kvinnohistoriska, Museum.link developed a combined archive database and exhibition website, designed after their visual identity. The result is a solution that feels like a seamless extension of their existing website rather than a separate system.

Simple and flexible collecting

Kvinnohistoriska can upload and archive material themselves, and also create separate collections linked to different exhibitions and projects. For each collection they can:

• choose which fields should be filled in
• choose the type of media (text, image, sound, video)
• decide what is published and what is only archived

This makes the tool flexible enough for both quick public collecting and more long-term archive work.

A tool for both physical and digital exhibitions

Museum.link has been used in several of Kvinnohistoriska's exhibitions, including Kvinnans plats, Kvinnans sak and Vägen till fri abort.

Collecting in direct connection with the exhibitions makes the experience more interactive and inclusive. The public's voices become part of the historical record and of material preserved for the future. Museum.link also offers a safe and reliable environment for collecting data that sometimes concerns sensitive personal experiences.

During the exhibition Spring före, held in connection with Tjejmilen's 40th anniversary, the tool was used to collect women's thoughts and reflections on running today. The collecting took place both online and around Stockholm, blurring the line between the temporary exhibition weekend and the long-term digital archive that is otherwise often seen as static.

Control behind the scenes

Behind the interface, Kvinnohistoriska work in an administrative view where they can review, edit and categorise material. They decide what is published openly and what is only kept internally, and can synchronise selected material to K-samsök for wider distribution in the heritage sector.

Result – an archive that collects the present for the future

With Museum.link's digital archive as a foundation, Kvinnohistoriska can collect, preserve and give access to stories, experiences and voices that might otherwise disappear. A flexible and scalable solution for a museum that is always evolving.