Whose Stories Get Told?

The first workshops were arranged for high school and university students. All volunteers had some kind of an international background, and many had lived in a number of different countries. High school students were from the International Baccalaureate school of Turun Normaalikoulu, and the university group consisted of exchange students and international Master’s program students. They came from many different degree programs. Among the volunteers there were, for instance, students of culture, history, economics, and translation.

Both groups met up on four occasions.  We started off by getting to know one another and by getting acquainted with the museums of the Museum Centre of Turku, the different collections, and services provided by the museum. During the workshops we visited the Museum Centre’s art storages and storages for cultural historical objects. This way students got an idea of how museum collection objects were appropriately handled and preserved.

Good questions about collection and exhibition practices came up during the workshops. For example, we talked about what is the purpose of a museum, and whose histories and interpretations get displayed. The volunteers also got familiar with the different collections through online services. A great number of collection objects from the Museum Centre are available for viewing on Finna.fi, a website which showcases materials from various Finnish museums, libraries and archives. On Flickr there are images of artworks and historical photographs belonging to the museum collection. The oldest photographs in the collections have been uploaded onto Daguerrobase website. The Museum Centre of Turku has in its collection approximately one hundred outdoor sculptures which have been placed on a map in Citynomadi.

During our visit to the furniture storages with high school students we examined an empire-style sofa from the beginning of 19th century which bore motifs alluding to the ancient Egypt.

Archiving Own Memories

Volunteers were each asked to bring an object to the workshop which somehow had to do with their international background, moving from one culture to another, or important memories. The chosen objects ended up emphasising different events and phases in life which had been integral to the development of one’s identity, in addition to objects which have to do with friends and family, family history, or gifts. Students shared stories about their objects and talked about them with one another.

During another meeting we compared the students’ own objects with museum collection objects selected by project researchers. We got to hear what kind of associations and relationships the volunteers saw between their personal objects and museum collections: what was striking, what was common, and what was different about the objects. We discussed the types of information that the volunteers saw relevant when considering their own objects in particular.

Students familiarised themselves with museum’s cataloging practices. They got to know museum databases and cataloged their own objects in the way of a collection object.