Funding to Sámi Museum Siida’s Retro Museum Project

The open-air museum – earlier called the Inari Sámi Museum – has a long museological history that has until now hardly been studied or presented to the public. There is a pile of archival material and a great number of films, interviews and photographs as well as thousands of visitors’ memories and experiences on the open-air museum that have never been published. With the help of archival material, the project will engage former employees, customers from the 50-year existence of the Museum, the local community and present and future visitors of the exhibitions in reminiscing and joint experiences.

The project will give the surrounding community and the audience of the Museum an active role in providing content. In the project, the project will also work together with different archives and create a new channel of access to the material that they have on the history of the Sámi Museum.

The project Open-Air Museum Now! will create an interactive and multimedia website on the history of the open-air museum. The basic content of the project will be published in Sámi, Finnish and English. The content of the website will be linked through QR codes to the attractions of the open-air museum in situ. The website will also work as an independent source of information.

Inari Sámi Museum was opened for the public for the first time in 1963. In June 2013, it will thus be 50 years since the museum was inaugurated. The Sámi Museum will celebrate its anniversary year for example by arranging a seminar on museum history, by offering special guided tours, and by presenting films shot on the premises of the open-air museum. The project The Open-Air Museum Now! will be launched immediately, but its results will not be available until the summer of 2014.

News Release of the Finnish National Board of Antiquities:

The National Board of Antiquities granted discretionary state grants for innovative projects of museums; the total sum of 647,000 euros was divided between 38 museums and joint ventures of museums. The purpose of the grants is to strengthen the influence of museums in society by providing support for innovative forms of activity and for communication and networking between museums and their operating environments, and by directing development measures at socially important focus areas.

In 2013, the grants were especially allocated to development projects that enhance cultural diversity, pluralism and well-being and prevent exclusion. Support was granted to creative content provision and productisation, to the planning of customer-oriented services and to the strengthening of children’s and young people’s cultural literacy and culture-oriented basic values.

Further information:
Arja Jomppanen, Head Curator, tel. +358 (0)40 579 3313, arja.jomppanen(at)samimuseum.fi