Museum collections are collections. They are made up by a number of collected objects and sources that have some meaning to the museum and usually more than one. But how are the objects collected? What reasons lie behind certain objects being collected and where do the boundaries lie when collecting objects for a collection?

 

The exhibition KEEPERS focuses on the Museum of Design and Applied Art’s collection. It will display the diversity that defines the collection while highlighting the fact that the museum’s collection is almost entirely composed of gifts. The title KEEPERS refers both to the objects themselves, the ones worth keeping, as well as the people who preserved them, kept them and eventually so generously gave them to the museum for safekeeping.

 

The Museum of Design and Applied Art has many keepers and at least one good reason to display them and make them memorable: for the sake of Iceland’s design history. The exhibition will look at the reasons for the collection’s composition and the future path the museum will take in building up one of Iceland’s youngest museums, a museum that will play a vital role in educating and building up that part of our cultural heritage which is always present in our daily environment, namely design.

 

KEEPERS casts a light on the constant work carried out by the museum staff: to collect samples from Icelandic design history in various ways. The exhibition will not remain the same but rather change along with the museum as its collection of keepers continues to grow.