The substantial aim of MATKIN: Cycles of life at the Norwegian "hytte" was to examine the practices that constitute kinship in contemporary Norway in the light of current theoretical debates in anthropology and socio-legal studies, through an empirical examination of common practices of inheritance and inhabitation of hytter.
Asserting that hytter provide an example of what have been called house societies, the project strove to illuminate the role of hytter in activating kinship relations. Through close examination of inheritance, and of creating and inhabiting the hytte, the project brought together anthropological research on kinning with socio-legal studies of property. With hytter so closely associated with nature-ideologies, themselves tied in with forms of Norwegian nationalisms, a close focus on hytter thus opened up a wealth of sociological data on kinship, material culture, banal nationalism, and nature practices.
Objectives
The project objectives were to:
1) explore the performance of kinship at the hytte and the role of the hytte as a moral person that attracts kinship-activities, demands care and attention, and attracts deep emotional responses;
2) examine the role of legal frameworks and legal practitioners in the constitution of family relations through negotiations over the transmission of hytte as property;
3) evaluate the materialisation of time, memory and imagination in the hytte, its contents and context, and conflicts between forms of value in the use and transmission of the hytte.
Exhibitions and dissemination
Exhibition at Norwegian Museum of Cultural History
Between April and October 2019, the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History hosted an exhibition curated by MATKIN researchers, entitled Hytta - Four Walls Round a Dream.
The exhibition showed a selection of images taken by photographer Haakon Harriss as part of the research. Haakon also photographed the exhibition itself that are reproduced here. The exhibition included short texts reflecting on what hytter mean to people, how they use them and how they figure in family life and across generations. A number of glass cabinets were used to display items from various hytter, as well as hytte-books, and a hytte-corner was built within the exhibition where visitors could relax, read the book 'Hytta' and sign the visitors hytte-book. The hytte-corner and furniture were supplied by Aalhytte AS.
Exhibition re-opens at Maihaugen
The Matkin exhibition reopened at Maihaugen, Norway's largest open-air museum, in January 2020 and remained open until 2021.
The exhibition portrays the tensions and challenges of owning, inheriting, using, loving and losing a family hytte. Marianne Lien, who has led the project, explains that, 'through photos and short texts, we show how kin and family become meaningful through hytte-use. The exhibition was open to the public from January to November, showing photographs by Haakon Harriss alongside the hytte-corner and selected objects that generate reflection and stories about hytte life. 'We were delighted that Maihaugen wanted to stage our exhibition. It means we can bring our hytte research to a new audience,' commented Professor Lien.
"Hytta: Fire vegger rundt en drøm": Mobile Exhibition
Since 2021, the exhibit "Hytta: Fire vegger rundt en drøm" has travelled between different museums in south Norway. In 2022, it was shown in Valdresmuseet in Fagernes. In the spring of 2023, Marianne Lien opened the exhibition in Nesbyen, Hallingdal in a nice log house that is part of Buskerudmuseet. In 2025 and 2026 it is shown in the Norwegian Museum of Travel and Tourism (Norsk reiselivsmuseum) in Balestrand.
Book launch: "Hytta: Fire vegger rundt en drøm"
Time and place: 29. Mar. 2019, Litteraturhuset, Oslo.
Almost every other norwegian has access to a hytte. the hytte holds both dreams and dissapointments, togetherness and strife. But what is it that makes the hytte so important? MATKIN welcomed attendants to the launch of the book "Hytta: Fire vegger rundt en drøm" on friday the 29th of march 2019, at Litteraturhuset in Oslo.
MATKIN at the research fair
Time and place: 22. sep. - 23. sep. 2017
Who is going to inherit the hytte? In what ways is the hytte valuable? The MATKIN projeckt discussed important questions about hytte and values at the research fair during the research days in Oslo.
