Health is complex and often the influence are prolonged when it fails, whether it is about spiritual, mental or physical health.in the last years and decades museums have focused on being a medium for people to congregate and share a mutual experience of events. Museums have always shared their knowledge, but in the past years they have also become a social areas and spaces where people can work on their mental and physical health (Brennan, 2020). Dodd and Jones point out that elderly people needs to stay physically and socially active, activate mental health and keep themselves independent because otherwise it could have a dramatic effect in the individuals (Dodd & Jones, 2014, p. 15). The same rule goes for everybody that is in danger of becoming socially isolated because of age and/or mental/physical weakness are especially sensitive. It will be shown that poor social health of individuals can have a negative effect on their physical health.
Seyðisfjörður is not big, just around 700 people live there so chances for a social isolation are relatively smaller than if it were a larger town. Smaller communities often stand tighter together, for the reason that everybody knows everybody else. Still, there is a place for the museum to meet the people halfway. Even though the museum is roofless, the museum is not only the building or the objects. Museums are not freestanding institutions that only distribute knowledge but also take in new items, new methods and work procedures and evolve along the community that it belongs to and the guests that visit is. That is how the Technical Museum can meet the people that are interested in sharing their story of the landslides and what came after the landslides, halfway, and by giving them room to share their experience and create continuous methods that might be useful in other cases where trauma has struck. It can also become a medium of material when it comes to climate change, because with changed weather conditions more landslides like this one will fall and become more frequent (as could be seen at the beginning of the summer in 2021).
Brennan, S. (2020). Museums as Change Agents: Supporting the Chronic Illness
Community. Theory and Practice, Vol. 3. Retrieved on July 27th from: https://articles.themuseumscholar.org/2020/06/05/tp_vol3_brennan/ .
Dodd, J. (2002). „Museums and the health of the community.“ in Museums, Society, Inequality, pp. 182-189.