Finland's museums are an insightful showcase for our country's long history, multidimensional culture and natural wonders. Their silent corridors hold stories that connect us to past generations, give us a perspective on other people's lives and take us away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It's symbolic how Finnish museums are often former factories, hospitals or monasteries that have been given new life as cultural arenas for today.
The Finnish museum sector is a large and vast entity, with around a thousand museums in total. There are museums of history, science, art, technology, military history, natural history, etc. Each of them has the task of preserving Finland's cultural heritage, but also of providing food for thought and experiences.
You literally step into a dark cave when you enter the gates of the Finnish Maritime Museum in Helsinki, for example. Its windowless halls bring Finnish shipping from the 1700s to the present day to life. On the other hand, the National Museum of Finland is a different experience, where visitors can follow the lives and history of Finns from the Ice Age to the present day.
Each individual object, document or image is its own story from the past, allowing us to create our own interpretation of who we are as a person and community, where we come from and where we might be going. Museums allow us to better understand ourselves, our culture and our history.
We come to understand that the past is not something far away from us, but lives in us and around us. Culture is a complex and ongoing process in which each of us is involved.
To sum up, Finnish museums tell the story of the heart of a nation, where the past pulsates in the present. At the end of a museum visit, it is a good moment to stop and think about what kind of cultural heritage we would like to leave for posterity. Museums can provide us with information, inspiration and insight into how our own time can influence our future cultural heritage.