Have you ever thought about where the meat you eat come from? What about your clothes? What materials are your things made from, and who made them?
Welcome to Nordfjord Folkemuseums new exhibition - Dyrebar! Dyrebar means prescious, and in this exhibition, we show a selection of the ways people of the past made use of animals. Nothing got thrown away before being used to its fullest – both before and after the animal was put to death.
In 1875, as much as 76% of Norway’s population lived on the countryside. They made their living in multiple ways; agriculture, fishing and shipping, forestry, trade and craft.
This way of living was highly self-sufficient. This entails that they didn’t only grow their own food, but made their own clothes, tools, houses, boats and the artifacts they surrounded themselves with in their day-to-day life.
In our perspective and time, the skills and knowledge people used daily in the past might seem both creative and inventive. The things they made might seem peculiar and at times morbid. But for them it was necessary and completely normal. In a time before money, plastic, electricity and stores, the resourceful self-reliance was imperative for survival. There was no alternative.
