Case report
MAD ABOUT HELSINKI – AN EXHIBITION ABOUT HOW A CITY IS/ WAS MADE AND LOVED
Petra Blažević
; Hrvatski pomorski muzej Split
Abstract
Mad about Helsinki is an exhibition that provides a unique
view of the history of the city since the 16th century. On the
ground floor of the Helsinki City Museum the curators opted
for a thematic approach, and within the groups of objects
and/or on info panels the themes Ice, Beaches, Parks, Squares,
Home, 1918 can be made out. On the whole these are
signs of a time or space recorded in the collective memory of
the inhabitants of Helsinki, most of all of their favourite places
– from popular cafes to ordinary flats in the former workingclass
neighbourhoods. On the upstairs unfolds a chronological
conception of the exhibition, starting off with several
archaeological remains of the 16th century, related to the very
beginnings of the settlement, concentrating then on twelve
characters who in different phases of history were connected
in various ways with Helsinki.
For instance, interesting details can be learned about 16th
century mayor Lars Michelsson, the national poet Aleksis
Kivi of the 19th century or the contemporary comic strip artist
and caricaturist Timo Mäkelä, whose drawings of Helsinki
embellish the wall surfaces at the very end of the exhibition.
The fact that the linear history of the city has been successfully
narrated on the basis of the biographies of some of its,
some more, some less, prominent individuals tells that the
link between city and citizens is very tangible.
The creator of the exhibition gives an interesting review with
commentaries from multimedia and interactive museographic
aids. At the end of the visit the public is given the microphone
again through the set-up of the exhibition, undoubtedly a
very important factor in the whole of the project. A great wall
surface serves as a blackboard on which visitors can chalk
their impressions and messages, while for a more permanent
storage of information there is a tabletop computer with a
questionnaire in three languages.
The exhibition is accompanied by a Web site in Finnish:
http://m.hullunahelsinkiin.fi/, an extension of the questionnaire
from the preparatory phase, but with more publicity and
dialogue among the participants. It is intended to expand
the repository of the collective memory about contemporary
places of Helsinki, which the users of the page themselves
add, recording their evaluations and comments about a given
place, object or institution, and it enables them to add their
own photographs. Putting the citizen, around whose experience
everything revolves, in the centre of the whole project,
Helsinki City Museum imitates the city.
For the city is its inhabitants.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
174259
URI
Publication date:
3.2.2015.
Visits: 1.174 *