“Friluftsliv” (“open air life”) is a Nordic concept gaining currency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Friluftsliv, which encourages time spent outdoors, is an antidote to the countless hours spent indoors teleworking and socializing on video conferencing platforms. However, due to its myriad benefits, friluftsliv merits consideration for complete integration into our daily lives long after the threat of COVID-19 subsides. What are the origins and basic tenets of this philosophy? How can we adopt this lifestyle in the short and long term?
Leslie Anderson, Director of Collections, Exhibitions, and Programs at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, and Petra Hilleberg, the President and CEO of Hilleberg the Tentmaker, come together for this RevelEleven event to teach us about Friluftsliv.
About Leslie: As the Director of Collections, Exhibitions and Programs of the Nordic Museum, Leslie leads the Museum’s efforts to provide meaningful cultural experiences, and she oversees the care and interpretation of the permanent collection. Since her arrival in 2019, Leslie has secured the largest gift of art to the Museum’s collection in its 40-year history and launched an oral history initiative to capture the experiences of individuals impacted by COVID-19 in the Nordic countries and the Pacific Northwest. In the wake of the pandemic, she spearheaded the virtualization of educational content, delivering programs that teach the Museum’s core values of social justice and sustainability to an international audience.
She has 15 years of experience curating in museums and has won the Award for Excellence from the International Association of Art Museum Curators. A former Fulbright scholar at the University of Copenhagen, Leslie specializes in Nordic art of the 19th century.
Leslie spends her spare time enjoying the outdoors with her husband, a designer of rock-climbing walls.
About Petra: Petra grew up in northern Sweden alongside the eponymous family company her parents started 50 years ago, which gave her both a big passion for the outdoors and a fascination for business. When she was 12, she told her father that she would one day sell tents in the US, and, after graduating from Seattle University in 2000, she did just that: she started the US side of the well-recognized Hilleberg tent company two days after graduation and sold her first tent one day later. She is now the President of Hilleberg, Inc, the US office, President of Hilleberg AB, the Swedish office, as well as the CEO of the Hilleberg Group, where she oversees the operations in Sweden, the US and the factory in Estonia.
In 2012, Petra was named an honoree of two prestigious 40 Under 40 awards: the 2012 SGB (Sporting Goods Business) 40 Under 40 Awards by the SportsOneSource Group and the 2012 Puget Sound Business Journal 40 Under 40 Awards.
She lives in Woodinville, WA with her husband and 7 chickens.