Museums in Strange Places

In the early 17th century, 300 English settlers traveled to the new colony of Maryland in search of new opportunities and a place where they could …

BONUS CONTENT from Episode 4, “Museum Time Machine: The Peale Center.” The Peale Center’s Nancy Proctor shows me the museum’s Ring of Fire, explains the phenomenon of skeuomorphism, and tells me why gas lighting was …

There’s a time machine in downtown Baltimore on Holliday Street. A time machine that will take you back to the origin of public collections of art, …

Prince George’s County, Maryland is one of the wealthiest African American communities in the US, a suburban enclave of Black excellence just outside Washington, D.C. But it wasn’t always that way. At the small (but …

Tucked among other Maryland suburbs outside Washington, D.C., the cute little town of Greenbelt has a surprisingly radical history. It was one of three “green towns” built under the New Deal Era Resettlement …

The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is monument to outsider art, the creative spirit, and the search for truth. Step inside this glittering temple to intuition and inspiration to experience the …

In each season of this podcast, I explore a different country, state, or region through its museums. In Season 1, I traveled around Iceland. For season two, I decided to explore my native state of Maryland. I visited 22 …

Iceland has a lot of weird traditional foods, but nothing compares to fermented shark meat. The family at Bjarnarhöfn has been hunting and fermenting shark meat for nearly 400 years, although today they only process …

On January 23, 1973, residents of the island town Vestmannaeyjar in Iceland were woken from sleep by the sounds of a huge fissure ripping open the …

No matter what happens on the Westman Islands off Iceland's south coast–invading pirates, mass Mormon exoduses, months-long volcanic eruptions, …

I didn't really want to visit the Icelandic Phallological Museum, so to make it more fun, I invited along my Icelandic museum friend, Sig. Join us as …

Tucked away in a narrow valley just below the town of Akureyri in North Iceland, Sverrir Hermansson's Museum of Sundry Objects is one eccentric man's …

In this special episode about women's history in Iceland, I visit the Women's History Archive at the National and University Library of Iceland to …

The Icelandic Aviation Museum in Akureyri is filled with great stories: locals crashing a Nazi glider into an open grave, the president's plane enlisted to beat the British in the Cod Wars, and a nineteen year search to …

How do you keep history fresh at a municipal history museum, even when many people in your audience have lived in that small town their entire lives? How do you best serve your local audience while still offering …

How does a contemporary art institution–places that are notoriously elitist–provide a thriving cultural center in a town's that on the periphery of …

Akranes is a coastal town in the southwest region of Iceland with a growing population of about 7,000. They have a unique heritage, as the area was …

Hafsteinn Thor has always been interested in geology, nature, biology, and philosophy...and acting and directing...and singing and learning new …

I visit the Reykjavík City Museum to talk with Museum Director Guðbrandur Benediktsson about museum mergers, historians as presidents, the state of history in Iceland, and the future of history museums in Reykjavík.

The …

I continue my conversation with Sigurlaugur Ingólfsson at the Árbær Open Air Museum in Reykjavík. We discuss what makes an open air museum visit memorable, whether admission prices motivate museums to stay fresh and …

I visit the Árbær Open Air Museum in Reykjavík to interview the Árbær Museum Project Manager, Sigurlaugur Ingólfsson. In this episode you'll learn about: open air/living history museums in Iceland, museum mergers, …