Munch's Scream is saved forever in the Arctic ice.


Norway's National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design has secured its entire collection from all risk and danger in a storage facility in the Arctic ice.

Norway’s National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo houses the largest collection of art, architecture and design with more than 400,000 pieces. These include masterpieces such as Munch’sScream, works by Bronzino, Carracci, Mantegna, Andrea del Sarto, van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, as well as Nordic artists.

To make its entire holdings safe from any event that may occur in the future, the museum has deposited a copy of its entire collection under the ice, namely in theArctic World Archive: a true “disaster-proof” repository, because one of the “safest places in the world from a geopolitical point of view,” located inside a mountain in the Arctic archipelago of theSvalbard Islands. The Arctic World Archive was created specifically to make sure that the digital memory can be usable for future generations against natural or man-made disasters.



The entire collection is safely protected in a photosensitive digital film capable of withstanding at least five hundred years. The museum has also deposited numerous high-resolution images of three prominent artists, Harriet Backer, Britta Marakatt-Labba, and Eline Mugaas. The first is one of Norway’s most significant painters of the nineteenth century, the second is a Sami artist, and the third is of Norway’s most important artists of the late twentieth century.

The National Museum holds works ranging from antiquity to the present day," said director Karin Hindsbo. “We are working with the same perspective. The collection belongs not only to us, but also to future generations. We now know that the works will be safe for many centuries.”

Image: Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893; 91 x 73.5 cm; Oslo, Nasjonalmuseet)

Munch's Scream is saved forever in the Arctic ice.
Munch's Scream is saved forever in the Arctic ice.


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