Stockholm's Nordiska Museet is using Bluefin displays and Pixilab software to let visitors explore thousands of historical photographs through interactive digital albums.
Bluefin: Square Touchscreens Bring Nordic Photo Archive to Life
Stockholm’s Nordiska Museet has installed interactive digital photo albums using 22-inch square touchscreens from Bluefin and content management software from Swedish company Pixilab. Visono Media, a Swedish distributor, was involved in the installation, too.
The installation is part of the museum’s Nordic Moments exhibition, which draws on an archive of approximately six million photographs documenting everyday life across the Nordic region from the mid-19th century to the present.
Until recently, only a small portion of the collection had been accessible to the public. The museum also faced a major conservation challenge when flooding at a storage facility damaged parts of its photographic archive, requiring negatives to be frozen and subsequently treated by conservators.
Digital albums in wooden frames
The new exhibition spans seven rooms, with the interactive installation located in a section called Photo Albums of Nordic Life.
Bluefin’s 22-inch square touchscreens are integrated into custom wooden frames resembling traditional photo albums. Visitors can sit and browse curated collections covering subjects such as daily routines, changing seasons and Nordic cultural traditions.
The displays feature a 1920 x 1920-pixel resolution, 500-nit brightness and integrated Intel computing hardware running Pixilab Blocks software.
The 1:1 screen format was selected to accommodate photographs in portrait, landscape and square orientations without the appearance of a conventional widescreen monitor.
“We thought to make a room with screens is not a new thing. But how can we make it more interesting?” said Matti Shevchenko Sandin, producer at Nordiska Museet.
Content can be updated remotely
The Blocks platform allows museum staff to manage the digital albums, introduce new collections and schedule content changes without modifying the physical installation.
The project illustrates how interactive displays can make large photographic archives more accessible while maintaining the familiar experience of browsing a traditional photo album.