From a dig in Sicily to a job in a Skara museum

When Emelie Byström tired of city life and her research position in Uppsala, she switched it for something completely different. Today she lives on a farm in the country and is a program producer at the Västergötlands Museum in Skara, where she can put her creativity and knowledge of history to full use.

Emelie has always been interested in history. She grew up in the southern Swedish town of Eslöv before moving first to Stockholm and then to Uppsala to study the culture and social life of antiquity.

“I held a PhD position in Uppsala and during my time there I took part in several digs around Europe, including Sicily and Athens. It was a glorious time in my life, but after four years I knew I was done working in research; it was time to try something new.”

And just when Emelie began pondering whether it was time to try something else, her other half got a job in Gothenburg.

“My partner – an archaeologist – hails from the Netherlands. We met during a dig in Greece. When he began work at the University of Gothenburg, Uppsala felt so very far away. Also, I longed to move out into the country.”

The couple found their dream home just outside Skaraborg, in the neighboring municipality of Vårgårda between Skara and Gothenburg, It was an old country house where their interest in building conservation would be more than useful. At the same time, Emelie got the job as a program producer at the museum in Skara.

“So much history!”

Although Emelie had studied history for many years, she was surprised by how many historical places Skaraborg is home to.

“There’s just so much history here! As soon as I began working at the museum I realized just how much there was – it was love at first sight!”

In addition to her amazement at the region’s abundance of historical remains in both town and country, Emelie experienced a growing interest in the history of her new down-home region. 

“People here are proud of where they live. There are not only scholarly, professional archaeologists, researchers and historians, but also a very knowledgeable general public. I was pleasantly surprised to find that so many people are interested and happy to share their knowledge.” 

As a program producer at the museum, Emelie plans and produces the outreach activities, such as lectures and other events. Emilie’s working days are varied and she handles events both large and small for different target groups.

“It’s very, very rewarding, socially engaging and creative! I draw great benefit from my qualifications in history, but planning things here requires me to be in contact with many different cultural creators, which means I’m constantly learning new things.”

Many museums in collaboration

Emelie tells us there are plenty of local museums in Skaraborg and that collaboration between them is constantly on the increase. While Västergötlands Museum is a regional museum, the local museums focus on their respective municipalities.

“We have a lot of joint initiatives and we cooperate when school is out so that our activities for children and young people reinforce each other and do not clash timewise. We’ve just received project support to develop an initiative for a history week in Skaraborg when we’ll be hosting loads of different events. I’m project manager for the initiative, so keep August 11–17 free!”

Naturally, all of Skaraborg’s museums’ target groups are important, but children especially so. Emelie tells us that in addition to the open activities that they are happy to arrange on weekends and school vacations, Västergötlands Museum invites all of Skara’s year 1 pupils to experience, for a full day, what it was like to live in the 1800s.

“They’ll get to visit cottages that date back from then, and they’ll be greeted by me and my colleague, both of us dressed in period clothes. The children also get to dress up a bit, and then we’ll show them how things were done back in the good old days. The day is usually greatly appreciated by the children and is naturally great fun for us, too!”