A Norwegian-American Museum Turns 150. Its Anniversary Exhibition Is Open to Every Tradition.

In 1877, somebody at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, started keeping the things Norwegian immigrants had carried over and the things they had made once they arrived. That hoard became Vesterheim, which is now the National Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School, and which turns 150 in 2027.

A museum marking that kind of anniversary usually does it by looking inward — the founding collection, the best pieces, the long institutional story. Vesterheim is doing close to the opposite. Its anniversary exhibition is a juried show, it is called Roots & Routes: A Special Exhibition of Contemporary Folk Art, and it is open to artists working in any tradition at all.

The call for entries is open now.

What they are asking for

“This special-themed folk art exhibition is a chance to tell your family history and cultural identity through folk art,” said Liz Bucheit, Vesterheim’s Director of Folk Art Education.

The brief is deliberately wide. “We all come from somewhere, whether your heritage flows from a single tradition or draws from many,” Bucheit said. “Bring your roots to life in a traditional or contemporary artwork that either follows folk art and handcraft traditions, or visibly draws on those traditions for inspiration, and tell us how this artwork represents you.”

Two things in that sentence are doing real work. The first is “or draws from many” — an acknowledgment that by the fourth or fifth generation, most families in Nordic and Baltic North America are not one thing. The second is “tell us how this artwork represents you.” The submission is not only an object. It is an object plus its story.

Vesterheim defines folk art as work crafted by hand by everyday people, using traditional skills passed down through communities. The museum has said it hopes to show many different traditions in the exhibit.

Why a Norwegian museum is asking everyone

It is worth sitting with how unusual this is. Heritage institutions in North America are mostly built around a single national story, and their anniversaries tend to reinforce it. Vesterheim has chosen to use its 150th to ask what a folk art museum is actually for.

The answer implied by Roots & Routes is that the Norwegian-American experience was never the point by itself — it was the particular case through which a general thing could be examined. The museum’s own standing description says it welcomes people of all backgrounds “to engage in the conversation of the American immigrant journey through the lens of the Norwegian-American experience.” An open-call anniversary show is that sentence taken literally.

For readers of this publication, that makes it unusually accessible. A Latvian-American weaver, an Estonian-American woodworker, a Finnish-American rag rug maker, or someone whose heritage is three of those at once, is not a guest at this show. They are the brief.

How to enter

The timeline runs long, which is the point — the museum has published the rules more than a year ahead so that artists can actually make something rather than submit something they already had.

• Now — entry rules are available at vesterheim.org. Read them before you start making.
• March 1, 2027 — entry forms and payment links go live at vesterheim.org.
• May 8 – October 24, 2027 — the exhibition is open to the public in Decorah.

Support for the exhibit comes from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Iowa Arts Council, which sits within the Iowa Economic Development Authority.

Vesterheim is at 520 W. Water St., Decorah, Iowa. Information on exhibits, classes, programs and membership is at vesterheim.org or (563) 382-9681.

Details supplied by Vesterheim. Lead photograph: a rosemaled plate by Rune Nesher, via Wikimedia Commons, used under CC BY-SA 4.0. It illustrates the folk art tradition behind the call and is not an entry in the exhibition.