Image: Museum Director Barbara de Haan and group leader for Skien Labour Party, Odin A. Bohmann, are very pleased with the government’s proposed national budget.

– ‘This is a day of joy for all of us who love Ibsen and the Telemark Museum,’ says Odin A. Bohmann.

– ‘We in local politics are happy that the opportunity to share Ibsen’s life has been recognized and granted by the government.’

He meets the director of Telemark Museum, Barbara de Haan, at Venstøp in Skien, where Henrik Ibsen’s childhood home is located. They both agree that this is a great way to start the week.

The Henrik Ibsen Museum at Venstøp is now entering a construction period until the anniversary year 2028. The barn will be equipped to function as a year-round museum, and the main house will be restored and returned to how it is believed to have looked when Henrik lived here as a child. The presentation of Henrik Ibsen’s life and literature will continue, but for the next few years, it will be based in Skien city center and the VEV museum building in Brekkeparken.

– ‘We are also looking beyond 2028. This allocation in the national budget is the first step toward being able to operate the Henrik Ibsen Museum year-round, including offering a good school program,’ says Barbara de Haan.

Image: Åslaug Sem-Jacobsen, Sp, (left) during a visit to Venstøp in 2022. Here, in the Ibsen family’s attic.

-Telemark Museum is a very important and valuable museum for both Telemark and Norway, says Åslaug Sem-Jacobsen of the Centre Party (Sp), who sits on the Family and Cultural Affairs Committee for Telemark in the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget).

She is one of many who have worked hard to ensure that cultural institutions in Telemark receive recognition.

-Myself, the Labour Party (Ap), the Centre Party (Sp), and the Minister of Culture are all focused on what’s happening around the 2028 anniversary year. We have secured support for Sølvåren, Grenland Friteater, we managed to establish VEV, and now it’s Venstøp and the Henrik Ibsen Museum’s turn, says Sem-Jacobsen.

She wants the museum to have a bit more flexibility on the operational side. The same applies to the VEV museum building in Brekkeparken, which has now secured an additional 2 million NOK in the state budget.

-It’s important that the operational grant is continued, and in doing so, we acknowledge the institutions, says Åslaug Sem-Jacobsen.

And are we happy at Telemark Museum? Yes! There will be celebrations!

As Ibsen says: “It is joy that ennobles minds,” Rosmer in Rosmersholm (1886).