Of Mice and Museums: The Changing Practices of doing Museums

2017

This article discusses how Finland’s museums and their collections are both timeand culture-bound and, as such, reflect society’s evolving values as impacted by historical events. Through the lens of Jyväskylä University Museum’s history, the theory of ‘worker generations’ and museum professionalization are discussed. About the Authors Professor of Museology, Mr. Janne Vilkuna (b. 1954), attended Helsinki and Jyväskylä Universities (Finland), studying the fields of Archaeology/Prehistory, Ethnology, Finnish History, and Art History. After completing his Master’s degree (1979), he worked as Senior Curator at the regional Museum of Central Finland, Jyväskylä (1980-89). He taught museology at Jyväskylä University when the department was established in 1983, and became a Lecturer in museology in 1989. Vilkuna completed his PhD in Ethnology in 1992. In 1999, he became the first Professor of Museology in Scandinavia. Concurrently, Vilkuna served as Head of the Jyväskylä University Museums...

2021

The main task of this doctoral dissertation is to ascertain how museums are practiced and defined through social practices. This has been done in three research articles, in which I have discussed how some people, various tasks and museums have been valued as more or less ‘museal’ than others in the Finnish museum field of the late 20th century. The empirical material included in this study consists of biographical interviews, in which museum professionals reminisced about their careers in the Finnish museum field, and responses to a questionnaire, in which museum visitors shared their museum memories. The former part is larger in size and has also been emphasised more in my analysis. Both parts of the material are products of a Finnish Museum History Project, carried out between 2005 and 2011. The questionnaire ‘Minun museomuistoni’ (My Museum Memories) was produced by the Finnish Literature Archive, and the interviews were carried out by various volunteers from the museum field. T...

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2021

This paper highlights the internal contradictions of museum institutions when they are influenced by neoliberal market-driven policies and new museology from the viewpoint of the museum-working researcher. Museums increasingly interface with the public because they are now part of the leisure market. Recent transformations have affected the roles and responsibilities of museum researchers. Whereas marketing, communication and sales specialists have gained more prominence in museum decision-making, the researchers' role has been marginalised. Semistructured interviews at five national museums in Finland and the Baltic States give voice to museum researchers and reveal their subjective reflections. The interviews revealed two discursive patterns: 1) caring for museum collections is more of a priority than conducting research, and 2) if academic results are prioritised, researchers are less involved in servicing the collections. The analysis showed how perceived marginalisation has caused role conflict and ambiguity for researchers, and that current shifts reduce researchers' motivation to contribute to research.

Ethnologia Fennica, 2023

Museum Studies – Bridging Theory and Practice, 2021

Various professional groups within and around museums are interested in their audiences. Curators, of course, produce exhibitions for the visitors, but the specialists dedicated to working for and with audiences are museum educators. Communication and marketing specialists also work for current and potential audiences. Funders, for their part, have a keen interest in who comes to a museum and how the museum is experienced. Although an educational ethos has been integral to the DNA of the public museum from the start, the current attention to audiences stems from somewhat different aspirations. This chapter explores the history of educational programmes in the Finnish National Gallery since the 1980s, particularly in relation to various educational and economic interests guiding audience orientation. In some instances, these interests support each other, in other cases they conflict. The research shows how funding structures have had an effect on programming and education work since the early days of the museum. Using some specific projects from the past and present as examples, I further discuss both the common and differing concerns of the various actors working for and with audiences, and how they affect the ways in which museums conceive, study and classify their visitors.

Ethnologia Fennica, 2019

The Finnish museum field transformed in many ways in the latter half of the 20th century: administrative structures were reorganised, new professional titles emerged and museological and conservational education was developed. These changes and their effects have been addressed in research (see e.g. Pet- tersson & Kinanen 2010), but there is one practical change that has remained understudied: the computerisation of museums’ day-to-day work. The empirical material for this paper consists of oral interviews with Finn- ish museum professionals, produced as part of a national museum history project in 2005–2011, and writings in the Finnish museological journal Mu- seopolitiikka. Based on the material, I analyse the empirical concept of “real museum work” as a social practice that is understood through certain material elements, competences and shared meanings, and ask how the introduction of information technology has affected it. How is “real museum work” under- stood in the interview...

2018

Museum Magazine, 2018

Topic: The training and professional development of museum staff What are the essential qualities that make a good museum professional in present day museum world? The ideal (museum) professional is a devotee of his/hers (museum) specialization but with a strong sense of belonging to a wider whole. Are dermatologists, gynecologists or pulmonologists distinctive professions? No, they are occupations, specializations within the medical profession and exist by the arguments of medical science. So, I if you accept the comparison, I would say, that talented, noble and responsible curators can exist as the result of a happy coincidence, but no job let alone a profession can be founded upon such fortuity. But talent and devotion helped by seminars, symposia and practice, create however, many good professionals. They have a broad insight into their basic academic discipline and deep interest in understanding of the world around them. Only from that can they provide the users of their museums with a needed, correct, honest product. What are some changes compared with the past standard? Alas, there has never been an international standard, which is both, good and bad. Generally, the changes are great and beneficial: more and more future curators receive some kind of professional training but it has to become obligatory and,-good. Our conference in Dubrovnik is part of that collective effort in learning (at least) by the best examples (www.thebestinheritage.com). However, this partly spontaneous process is not what any profession would consider as strategy for its future. The disastrous fact is that probably 80% of curators working in museums have received only their specialist academic training and no specific education for the public service they run. What kind of young talent is most likely to shape the future of the museum? I am afraid that the future of museums will increasingly depend upon holders of power. But we have to master as much of our mission as possible. The young, talented, scientifically well trained, educated for the heritage profession and devoted to public good might assure us some chances. Privatization, commodification and commercialization are destroying professions. I hope some countries and cultures will know how to retain public services and prevent delivering the society unconditionally to the profit predators. We need to have young curators who will finally establish a profession. Societies thrive on professions and they have been created for that. A good memory on what values humanity is founded will be the condition for survival of the mankind when casino capitalism finally pushes the world into the abyss of artificial intelligence, cyborgs and hybrid human beings. We desperately need the memory of quality, of basic values and virtues of humanitas. We need those with a mission,-who want the world get better,-if that does not sound obsolete in this cynical and hypocritical world. The public can learn only from those whom it loves; on the other hand, to be loved one must love first.

Il capitale culturale, 2022

This paper takes Greek philosopher Plato’s well-known observation that no living organism stays actually the same throughout its lifetime since its fundamental nature is instead continuous change, and applies it to museum institutions. Museum institutions might be regarded as living organisms as well and, from this perspective, we can ask what causes a museum to be perceived as the same museum over time. In so doing, we can thus also analyse the conditions under which the balance between stability and change breaks down. Combining contextual analysis and a case study approach seems the most promising strategy to address these questions. In this paper, we analyse the debate over the function and mission of museums in post-Unification Italy to show that museums can serve multiple purposes, purposes which in turn might shape museums’ collections, visions, and display and narrative strategies. We also present the analysis of a case study which not only demonstrates that museums never stay the same but also allows us to draft an analytical model according to which the substantial changes museums undergo or trigger in interaction with and relation to societal changes enable us to identify the fields of force in any given concrete situation in which museums are located and act as institutions.