Vesterheim From Home: Member Event 2024

Cozy up with a cup of cocoa or tea and get ready for the holiday season with Vesterheim. Vesterheim members will enjoy: • An insider update from Vesterheim President Chris Johnson, including highlights of plans for 2025 to commemorate 200 years of organized Norwegian migration to North America and updates on Vesterheim’s forging studio set to open...

Norwegian Christmas

Come to Decorah for this festival event for the whole family!

Hardanger Fiddle Concert & Demonstration

Vesterheim 502 W. Water St., Decorah, IA, United States

Enjoy Norwegian Christmas at Vesterheim with a Hardanger fiddle concert by Eden Ehm and a fiddle-making demonstration with Karen Rebholz. Eden Ehm’s interest in folk music and fiddling began during middle school and high school as the principal violinist of the Decorah Nordic Dancer's Orchestra. Eden began studying the Hardanger fiddle with Andrea Een while...

200 Years of Norwegians in America Gallery Talk

Everyone is invited to join Vesterheim and Luther College students for a free gallery talk about this new exhibit commemorating 200 years of Norwegian emigration! The ship Restauration set sail for America from Stavanger, Norway, on July 4, 1825, with 52 Norwegians aboard. To commemorate this bicentennial anniversary, Vesterheim presents this special exhibition focusing on Norwegian emigration,...

December Filmprat: Christmas as Usual

Dr. Maren Johnson, Luther College's Associate Professor of Nordic Studies and Torgerson Center for Nordic Studies Director, facilitates a regular bokprat (book group), discussing Scandinavian authors and Scandinavian life. December's discussion is a twist on the usual format and features the film Christmas as Usual available on Netflix. Thea is going to her rural hometown to...

Event Series Free Second Saturday

Free Second Saturday

Vesterheim offers free admission the second Saturday of every month. Come and enjoy the museum! Special exhibits open are listed here. There's always something new! Free Second Saturdays are supported in part by a generous gift to the Vesterheim Annual Fund from Kari and Pete Espinosa.

Barnetimen Children’s Hour – December

Vesterheim welcomes preschoolers and their caregivers to Barnetimen Children’s Hour. Meet in the lobby of the museum’s Main Building to explore objects and stories in the museum’s collection and make fun art. Get in the festive spirit with Norwegian holiday traditions during December’s program. Meet in the lobby of the museum’s Main Building to learn...

January Bokprat: The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen

Dr. Maren Johnson, Luther College's Associate Professor of Nordic Studies and Torgerson Center for Nordic Studies Director, facilitates a monthly bokprat, discussing Scandinavian authors and Scandinavian life. Join us in January for a discussion of The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen. In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister...

Leading with Our Hearts: Conversation with Exhibit Artists

Join us online with the artists of Leading With Our Hearts: Nordic, Sami, and Ojibwe Designs from Nature!  Alison Aune, Chi Ma’iingan, Laurel Sanders, Wendy Savage, Dr. Lisa Savage, and Marlene Wisuri will talk about the contributions to the exhibit and the cultural and ancestral roots of their work in textiles, wood, and paint. Register...

Barnetimen Children’s Hour – January

Vesterheim welcomes preschoolers and their caregivers to Barnetimen Children’s Hour. Meet in the lobby of the museum’s Main Building to explore objects and stories in the museum’s collection and make fun art. How does art make you feel? Do you know what the people in artworks are feeling? During January’s program, we’ll look closely at...