The MOT MANEN Exhibit
The Original Space Race Exhibition
June 5- August 23, 1998
Kulturhuset gallery 3, Stockholm, Sweden
August 20, 1998 I visited Stockholm for a day.
Being in Finland for a week, Stockholm is only 10 hours away by boat so
when I heard about the Mot Manen exhibit I wanted to go there badly. Thanks
to Henna, who guided me from Finland to Stockholm and back I was delivered
in front of the Kulturhuset (house of Culture). Entrance fee was only 30
Swedish Krons, which is about $4.50, for free compared to all the other
prices in Stockholm. Here you'll find the pictures I took at the exhibit,
I wanted to take more but one of the guards did not allow me to take any
more pictures with my flash turned on. As I didn't have a tripod and blue
filter with me these are unfortunately all pictures I took. Luckily I photographed
most of the 'important' exhibits first, what's missing are pictures of
space toys collections, LP collections (long play records, for those grown
up in the Compact Disk era), Gagarin's statue and some of the fashion exhibits.
As my knowledge of Swedish is not that good (I only understand about 40
% what's written) I won't get into details how and why this exhibit was
formed. You can read that somewhere else on Sven's pages. I only know there first was a book and then there was the exhibition.
Upon entry you'll note all the goldfoil on the floor, everything
was covered in goldfoil, which made the exhibition not real museum like,
but very brightly light. At the entrance I was greated by a huge ( 3 meter
or 10 feet or so) Gagarin statue and a blown-up Mercury toy capsule (see
picture above). So here are the pictures with a short description. Some
of the exhibits could have been seen before at the Cosmonautics museum
in Moscow, but most of you probably haven't been there either. Besides
these the exhibits in Sweden were much closer accessible then in Moscow.
The early space program is depicted in this cabinet. Life covers
featuring John Glenn, an 1/96 Revell CSM and LM, an EVA models Al Shepard
and the real sized toy mercury capsule.
Device of making drinking water out of humidity and urine. Presumably
flown, but to me it looks more like an instructional tool
Mock-up of MIR table
1/4 scale model of Wostok capsule. This model really has to be
seen as it was detailed in such a way you won't belief. In the background
Kennedy's speech in Swedish "This nation should commit itself, before this
decade is out of achieving the goal of landing a man on the moon and returning
him ......we choose to go to the moon....."
In foreground a mir oven to heat foodcans (flown) and at rear something
that seems to be a reentry capsule insert, also flown
Mir base module model with Kvant, Soyus and Progress.
Sokol space suit. This is one of the earlier ones, which can be
seen by the visor. Used by W.A. Ljachov
Titov's parade suit
Orlan Space suit. Said to have been used by Musa Manarov. On the
other side you'll find:
In top of picture picture of Musa Manarov Shaking hands with the
orlan space suit. A very nice model of a lunachod, sputnik lamps and ceramic
cosmonauts.
Apollo era training stuff and plug of heatshield. At left moonboot
at right urine collecting transfer assembly, used by Schweickart during
training.
Flown Swedish flag and crewpatch in honor of King Gustaf's birthday.
This flew on Apollo 15. The whole thing looked like a last minute made
gift, but I wouldn't mind getting such a gift. It reads (handwritten);
Congratulations to his magesty Gustaf VI ........ King of Sweden. From
the crew of Apollo 15, November 11, 1971
This looked more official, a flown Swedish flag and piece of moon
stone, taken back to earth with Apollo 17.
Flown on Apollo 11 and carried on the moon by Armstrong Hasselblad
Film Magazine and Magazineshutter, presented to Mr. Hasselblad.
Omega exhibit, no flown items but 2 Omega Speedmasters, one as
it is sold standard, the other with a velcro wristband like the ones used
on the moon.
Here are the main exhibits of Mot Manen. A stuffed Bjelka, its space suit
and the capsule that carried it with Strejelka into space. Strejelka was
left in Moscow presumably. In Moscow they were exhibited together.
These were the last pictures I took, at left one of the several
exhibits about the influence of space travel on fashion, at right several
items related to spaceflight and its influence on design.
So did I like the exhibition? Well yes and no, yes because it
takes a great deal of courage to get together such important pieces for
an exhibition, the gift or souvenir shop was well stocked with even space
rated glep (russian bread), t-shirt, old, vintage modelkits, the Mot manen
book, an exhibition catalog at top, posters, CD-roms. At the other hand
it annoyed me I wasn't allowed to flash, even when I explained it was for
an on-line review and that I travelled all the way from the Netherlands.
The only thing that bothered me about the whole exhibition was the subtitle:
"The original space race exhibition". A month before I had been in Washington
DC and at the Air and Space museum there was a similar titled exhibit,
which covered the subject better then in Sweden. Despite that I liked the
exhibit and I hope next time there will be such an exhibit there will be
some items on display of the first Swede in space. Unfortunately the exhibit
is over so you can't go there yourself anymore. If however you want a reprint
of the pictures shown above (which have better resolution) contact me.
Julius de Roo
rhomodels@wxs.nl
Posted: 14 Oct 1998
