All aforementioned challenges are, in one way or another, bound to the rela- tionship between the audience and collections. The meanings and impact of
collections are central quality criteria, and neither significance nor quality is currently defined by experts alone.
Expectations of providing experiences and entertainment meet the challeng- es of objectivity, diversity and empowerment of all kinds. Museum collections should aim to fulfil the same goals and needs as other museum work. Peter van Mensch and Leontine Meijer-van Mensch state (2011, p. 15) that we should view collections as tools for achieving a museum’s goals, not as goals an sich. We must examine whether our collections can serve these needs. Should we perhaps acquire new types of collections or develop our collections management, so that we can utilise the empowering potential that collections have?
There has long been the opinion that an exhibition is the platform on which a museum can best display its collections to the audience. Exhibitions continue to ensure the best media visibility for museum work, and museums’ operations are mainly assessed in light of visitor numbers. From this point of view, collections have no intrinsic value; their purpose is to support the goals of a museum’s exhibition activities (Anderson 2004, p. 4).
There is also an opposing view of development to the previous perspective. Ex- hibition visitors want to be ever closer to collection objects and experience them with all their senses by touching, listening and smelling. This underlines our ability to classify collections. The Helsinki City Museum has utilised collection use classifications for approximately a decade, and objects are actively used in both exhibitions and activities related to museum pedagogy. Some visitors also want to know more about the mythical behind-the-scenes life (Lubar 2017) of museums. For these types of visitors, the museum organises visits to the col- lection centre. Unfortunately, the City Museum has not been able to arrange an open access collection centre for visitors, despite plans in the early 2000s.
On the other hand, the first steps in including audiences in collections work have been taken with the introduction of two voluntary groups doing photo- graph collection work. The Kuvakummit (Photo Godparents) group focused on photograph collection care, and the photography hobbyist group, Kuvaussakki (Photographing Bunch), documented Helsinki and the city’s life, in co-opera- tion with museum staff. Meanwhile, voluntary work is still being defined in the cultural-historical collection.
For Complexity
The new paradigm that puts the audience more into focus was visible in the Finnish 2019 Museums Act, which, for the first time, highlighted matters such as community, cultural diversity and equality as purposes of museum activity (314/2019, §1).
Museums have undertaken complete turnabouts with regard to identity politics.
They have constructed a cohesive worldview and a homogeneous community identity for many generations and have simultaneously built and maintained the
concepts of otherness. The word community is, in and of itself, excluding, and it places a boundary between us and the other (Walle 2018, p. 107). In a global culture, however, people’s identities are constructed transnationally, and in many locations, which museum collections should reflect (Mulinari et al. 2009, p.13). As a result, museums have begun to deconstruct this ideal monolith, and they are now steering their operations toward diversity.
There has been a desire to introduce fractures and different tones to homogene- ous and monocultural narratives about national and, in the City Museum’s case, local identities. Thomas Bauer, an expert on Arabic literature, has presented a strong case for the culture of ambiguity (2018). He is concerned about the ten- dencies of simplification and overgeneralisation that are related to populism and fundamentalism and that also affect depictions of history. Museums have the opportunity to take a role in resisting fundamentalism and in making diversity and complexity visible. This is an essential part of social and cultural sustain- ability. Bauer reminds people that the past is truly different – sometimes even bizarre and repulsive – but change has existed and always will. The emancipatory power of museum collections is that they are proof of the potential for change.
They also bear witness to the fact that all change is not always positive, and that we must constantly fight for the values we believe in.
Figures 1 and 2. The challenge of the collection’s development is to create shared interfaces between collections and the many identities and stories manifest in the audiences. A young family in Helsinki in 2004 and a uniform from the 1780s. Photos: Matti Huuhka and Jan Alanco/HCM.
Changing one’s own identity as an actor is not without its problems. Museums have a strong desire to deconstruct traditional stereotypes instead of strength- ening them, but accomplishing this task demands much self-inspection and education. One criticism concerns museums’ positions as actors. Museums and their collections are thought to represent the established power structures of the majority – which they often do – and they do not necessarily recognise their own motives (Damsholt 2012, pp. 34–36; Boast 2011). From this perspective, the desire for understanding and harmony often means assimilating the other into us. Thomas Walle argues that a truly inclusive museum process is one that changes new communities and the museum’s traditional demographics, as well
as the museum itself (Walle 2018, p. 107, p. 115, p. 124). In other words, the result should be truly new communities that are not based on nationalism or local patriotism. Individual groups and their diversity should be strengthened.
This is obviously not an easy task, and it is not easy to always make the right moves in relation to an issue that is an object for much ideology, politics and feelings (Ahmed 2012).