This week, the Sámi Museum Siida is hosting a delegation from Upopoy, the National Ainu Museum and Park, in Hokkaido, Japan. During the visit, the Ainu Culture Foundation and the Sámi Museum are renewing their partnership agreement, which aims to promote cultural collaboration between Indigenous peoples, including through museum exhibitions and staff exchanges.

The Sámi Museum has collaborated with Japan’s Indigenous people, the Ainu, since the 1980s. During that time, reciprocal visits were organized between the Ainu Museum in Shiraoi, Hokkaido, and the Sámi Museum in Inari, along with Sámi Radio and the Sámi Delegation. In 1984, the Ainu Folk Museum and the Sámi Museum in Inari signed a declaration of partnership and friendship to advance the “study and preservation of our cultures, histories, and identities.”

 

This week, the Sámi Museum in Inari is hosting Noriyuki Abe, Senior Deputy Director of Upopoy, Hikaru Jono from the Ainu Culture Foundation, Masahiro Nomoto, Vice President, and Yomaru Yamamichi, a craftsman from the National Ainu Museum and Park, along with interpreter Mio Yachita. The purpose of the visit is to renew the partnership agreement and strengthen collaboration, especially between museum organizations. The visitors will also tour the renewed Sámi Museum and its exhibitions.

 

The Ainu are an Indigenous people of Japan whose traditional homelands are located on the northern island of Hokkaido, as well as in the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. The Upopoy Center, located on the shore of Lake Poroto in Hokkaido, serves as the national center for the revitalization and development of Ainu culture. In the Ainu language, “Upopoy” means “singing together in a large group.” Upopoy consists of the National Ainu Museum and Park, where Ainu culture is preserved and showcased. The center also includes a Memorial Area with facilities for commemorative ceremonies and the preservation of Ainu ancestral remains that were previously excavated for research purposes from various universities and have since been returned.

 

More information: Museum director, Taina Máret Pieski, taina.pieski(at)samimuseum.fi,Tel. 050 5351574

The Chairperson of the Sámi Museum Foundation Veikko Feodoroff, Museum Director Taina Máret Pieski and the Mayor of the Inari municipality Tommi Kasurinen hosted the presidential visit. Also, the Sámi Museum’s curators Marjo-Riitta Rantamäki and Konsta Verta participated in the occasion.

Thank you, the President of the Republic of Finland, for honoring us with your presence in Enare and for showing interest towards Sámi culture!

Image: Konsta Verta / Saamelaismuseo Siida

The Museum of the Year 2024 award was presented today, May 23, at the Museum Award Gala organized by the Finnish Museums Association and the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in Jyväskylä.

The Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida has become the most significant visitor destination and tourist attraction in Northern Lapland. Our exhibition, “Enâmeh láá mii párnááh – These Lands Are Our Children,” which opened in 2022 in the expanded and renovated Siida building, has been a success. The new joint exhibition, the repatriation work carried out by the Sámi Museum, and community collection work have significantly advanced the national and international societal visibility and impact of the museum field.

We are very happy and satisfied that the diverse work of the Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida for Sámi cultural heritage and northern nature has received the most significant recognition in the Finnish museum sector.

“The award for the wonderful and heartfelt work belongs to the entire staff of the Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida and to all those who have participated in the exhibition and renovation projects over the past years. The Sámi Museum especially wants to thank the Sámi community, which has participated in the exhibition renewal, repatriation work, and community work, and supported the museum’s work,” said chief curator Eija Ojanlatva, accepting the award on behalf of the Sámi Museum.

“We at Metsähallitus highly value the more than 25 years of cooperation between the Nature Centre and Sámi Museum at Siida. It has taken us far, and together we have been pioneers. When the first exhibition opened, the joint exhibition of the two organizations was the first of its kind. In our new exhibition, we created a new way of storytelling by using art in our displays. The concept of combining two exhibition scripts into one still works,” rejoices Kirsi Ukkonen, a special expert in recreational use at Metsähallitus.

“This is a significant recognition alongside the European Museum of the Year award. We hope that these awards will also be reflected in the appreciation and funding of Sámi Museum Siida’s national work,” says museum director Taina Pieski.

The new exhibition at the Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida has been a success, as we have surpassed previous visitor records. Since the reopening, we have had 226,000 visitors in a year and a half, with nearly 120,000 of them visiting our exhibition. Over half of our exhibition visitors are international guests.

In addition to Sámi Museum and Northern Lapland Nature Centre Siida, four other museums competed for the award: Chappe Contemporary Art Museum in Raseborg, the Luostarinmäki Museum Quarter in Turku, the Finnish Forest Museum Lusto in Punkaharju, and the Museum Centre Konsti in Varkaus. The award was presented for the tenth time.

Giitu! Takkâ! Späʹsseb! Kiitos!

For more information:
Museum Director Taina Pieski, taina.pieski(at)samimuseum.fi, +358 50 5351574
Special Expert in Recreational Use Kirsi Ukkonen, kirsi.ukkonen(at)metsa.fi, +358 400 479 986

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/siidainari/albums/72177720317204179

The European Museum of the Year award was presented today on May 4th in Portimão, Portugal, at the EMYA conference organized by the European Museum Forum.

Sámi Museum would like to thank the EMYA jury, the European Museum Forum, the city of Portimão, and ICOM Finland for this award and the opportunity to participate in the 2024 EMYA conference.

We are very pleased that the renewal of Siida and our diverse work for Sámi cultural heritage has been recognized throughout Europe.

“Sámi Museum Siida, as an indigenous museum, is primarily for the Sámi people themselves. But we are extremely pleased to see how our Sámi story resonates with the entire European museum community and people around the world,” said museum director Taina Pieski in her acceptance speech.

This award belongs to the entire Sámi community, its elders who have supported our work with their knowledge and skills, and the entire staff of the Sámi Museum for their heartfelt efforts. In Siida’s new main exhibition, the Sámi themselves tell their own story. Over 300 members of the Sámi community participated in the preparation of the exhibition on Sámi culture.

We want to thank also our ancestors for their strength, love and support.

We hope that this award gives us strength to continue our important repatriation work for our community. For this work, we need the support of the entire European museum community so that the artifacts of our ancestors return home to Sápmi.

We want to extend our warm congratulations for all the museums awarded at EMYA2024!

Giitu! Takkâ! Späʹsseb! Thank you!

 

More information: Museum director Taina Pieski, taina.pieski(at)samimuseum.fi, +358 50 5351574

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/siidainari/albums/72177720316701063/

Press release from the European Museum forum here.

Sámi Museum Siida is among the finalists for the European Museum of the Year Award 2024. The selection will be made at the European Museum of the Year Award conference in Portimão, Portugal, on May 4th. The five-day conference brings together experts and organizations in the museum sector from across Europe to discuss current challenges, societal significance, and impact.

“We are very pleased that Siida’s renovation and our diverse national work for Sámi cultural heritage have been recognized on a European scale,” says museum director Taina Pieski.

Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida has become the most significant tourist destination in Northern Lapland. We broke all previous visitor records last year. Siida was visited by 138 000 people, of which 68 000 visited our exhibitions. This winter has also been exceptionally busy.

In Siida’s new main exhibition, the Sámi people themselves tell their own story. Over 300 members of the Sámi community participated in the preparation of the exhibition on Sámi culture from 2021 to 2022.

“This is reflected in the diversity of expression and storytelling in the exhibition. All three Sámi languages spoken in Finland are represented. Thanks for the successful work of the Sámi Museum Siida belongs to the entire Sámi community,” says Pieski.

Fifty museums from 24 countries are competing for the title of European Museum of the Year. This award has been given for 47 years.

The joint main exhibition of the Sámi Museum and Northern Lapland Nature Center, “Enâmeh láá mii párnááh – These Lands Are Our Children,” opens and interprets the layers of the landscape through the concept of Sámi cultural environment. According to it, nature and culture are closely interconnected. In Sámi cultural environment, the connection to the land and the environment is built through oral storytelling and traditions. The story of Sámi culture reveals how the past lives within us.

The exhibition’s title comes from a poem written by Inari Sámi poet Matti Morottaja. The script for the exhibition on Sámi culture is provided by emeritus professor Veli-Pekka Lehtola.

Link to our EMYA video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU-QgA7pk6k&t=1s

Link to the conference website:
https://emya2024portimao.com

 

Additional information: Museum Director Taina Pieski, tel. +358 50 535 1574

The Museum of Northern Ostrobothnia is donating its Sámi objects to the Sámi Museum Siida.

The Sámi Museum Siida is the national museum with the responsibility for preserving the material and cultural heritage of Finland’s Sámi people. The Sámi objects in the Museum of Northern Ostrobothnia’s collections were mainly acquired between 1900 and the 1960s with the last ones added to the collections in the 1980s.

The first part of the donation, which includes the textile items of the collection, will be transferred to representatives of the Sámi museum in the collection facilities of the Museum of North Ostrobothnia on Tuesday, 16 January 2024.

– As the new collection and exhibition facilities of the Sámi Museum Siida are now completed, this seemed like a good time to donate the objects of Sámi origin back to the Sámi community, says Pasi Kovalainen, Director of Cultural heritage work at the Museum of Northern Ostrobothnia.

– The Sámi objects and their return have a profound meaning for the Sámi community. The donation is a significant addition to the oldest part of the Sámi Museum Siida’s collections. We thank the Museum of Northern Ostrobothnia for this important decision, says Taina Pieski, Siida’s Museum Director.

The collections of the Museum of North Ostrobothnia that include objects of Sámi origin date back to the early days of the only professionally run museum in Northern Finland. The objects were collected by Samuli Paulaharju (1875–1944), a folklorist and museum curator from Oulu. The collection was destroyed almost completely by two fires in the museum buildings in 1929 and 1940. After both fires, replacement items were collected in Lapland.

The collection of approximately 400 items now donated consists of Sámi textiles and utensils, including a goahti (traditional Sámi hut) and several sledges. The oldest items include a cheese mould from Enontekiö dating back to 1797 and rare crossbow stocks, the oldest of which dates back to 1730.

As a large part of the Sámi cultural heritage is still held by museums outside the Sámi region, the transfer of the collection is important for the Sámi community.

The Sámi material culture is both practical and beautiful in its diversity, and the museum objects contain a wealth of intangible knowledge about their manufacture and use. This knowledge is best preserved in Sápmi by the Sámi themselves. Through the study of artefacts, it is possible to revive the old craft traditions and techniques of the Sámi community, knowledge of materials and the vocabulary related to the production and use of the objects. The revitalisation processes are a form of communal and intergenerational transfer of learning and knowledge, and they contribute to the transmission of Sámi material and immaterial culture to future generations.

The transfer of Sámi collections to the Sámi Museum Siida over the past decade is a concrete demonstration of genuine cooperation between museums and the increased understanding of the importance of cultural heritage for the Sámi community.

 

For further information, please contact:
Pasi Kovalainen, Director of Cultural heritage work, tel. 044 7037151
Eija Konttijärvi, Chief Curator, tel. 044 7037184 and Maisa Lukkari, Curator, tel. 044 7037183
Taina Pieski, Museum Director, tel. 050 5351574 and Marjo-Riitta Rantamäki, Curator, tel. 040 571 5670

The Sámi Museum and Northern Lapland Nature Centra Siida had a little over 68 000 exhibition visitors in 2023. Visitor numbers are back to, and even past, pre-covid numbers.

The past year broke the previous exhibition visitor record from 2019 by about six percent. The increase from the previous year of 2022 was 33 %.

The automatic visitor counter at the main entrance ticked to a record breaking 138 000 visitors overall. This number includes Metsähallitus customer service, tourist info, restaurant Sarrit, and the museum shop Siida Shop’s customers in addition to the exhibition visitors.

Another record broken this year was the daily record of visitors, as in the autumn season we saw a day with over 850 exhibition visitors in a single day, the previous record was thus surpassed by over two hundred.

The overall normalization of the travel industry post-covid, as well as the attractive renewed main exhibition Enâmeh láá mii párnááh – These Lands are our Children, have clearly affected the rise of visitors. The renewed exhibition has now been seen by over 113 000 people since it’s opening June 1^st, 2022.

– It is delightful to see that Siida has broken all previous visitor records. An exhibition curated by the Sámi themselves of their own culture clearly speaks to both outsiders as well as the Sámi community themselves, says Sámi Museum Siida’s director Taina Pieski.

– The exhibition also works as a unique lure to the northern Lapland nature. The overall visitor number tells us about the scale of the travel industry in the area. In addition to the exhibition experience there is a need to receive diverse services and specified information about the nature and how and where to travel in it, all under one roof, says Recreational Amenity Specialist Tarja Tuovinen from Metsähallitus.

About 42% of all visitors came from outside of Finland, the ratio between Finnish and foreign visitors is moving closer to pre-covid level each year. Most of the foreign visitors were from Germany and France, but Hong Kong and Australia have now risen in the statistics as well, after a few years absence.

The number of guided tours has skyrocketed since the opening of the new main exhibition. In 2023 there were 400 guided tours, in five different languages, when the previous record from 2019 is 292 guided tours.

Sámi Museum’s Skolt Sámi Heritage House in Sevettijärvi had an overall of 1311 visitors in 2023. The Heritage House was open from June 20^th until September 23^rd (Tue-Sat, 10-16). The busiest season at the Heritage House was the autumn season with 30% of the whole year’s visitors.

The doctoral dissertation that Sámi researcher Áile Aikio has submitted to the University of Lapland deals with the Sámi museum and the Sámification of the museum. Aikio’s dissertation The Sámi Museum? A Research on the Ontological Politics of Sámi Cultural Heritage will be examined at the Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida in Inari on Friday, December 8, 2023.

In her dissertation, Aikio finds that the Sámi cultural part of Siida’s main exhibition and its creation process are a unique act of decolonisation as well as an effort of the museum to build up a more Sámi way of performing museum work.

– We are very happy that the communal way of working chosen by the Museum as regards presenting Sámi culture to visitors shows both in the exhibition and its interpretation. The Sámi Museum Siida has the promotion of decolonisation as its central objective. We are pleased that Áile Aikio’s doctoral research supports the guidelines chosen by the Sámi Museum, states Sámi Museum Siida’s Museum Director Taina Pieski.

According to Pieski, Aikio’s dissertation provides valuable information on the Sámification of the museum and on how to integrate indigenous views into museum work even to a greater extent.

– The Sámi Museum Siida congratulates and thanks Aikio for her dissertation, which serves the Sámi community and Sámi culture in a concrete way, Pieski says.

The joint permanent exhibition of the Sámi Museum and the Northern Lapland Nature Centre was renewed in connection with the extension and renovation of the Siida Building in 2020 – 2022.

Siida’s new main exhibition “Enâmeh láá mii párnááh – These lands are our children” got its name from a poem written by Inari Sámi Matti Morottaja in Inari Sámi. The name sums up the most important messages of the museum in the areas of nature and culture. The new exhibition was opened on June 1, 2022, and has had as many as 110 000 visitors so far.

When creating the part of the new exhibition that focuses on Sámi culture we widely involved the Sámi community. The exhibition became a result of cooperation between the Sámi Museum and the fields of Sámi research and Sámi art. The manuscript for the cultural part was produced by Professor of Sámi Culture Veli-Pekka Lehtola, while Visual Artist Outi Pieski was the Artistic Director of the exhibition. The practical realisation of the exibition renewal was the responsibility of a large working group appointed by the Sámi Museum.

The Sámi cultural contents of the exhibition reflect on how the past goes on living in us.

– We at the Sámi Museum aimed at creating a new exhibition from the points of view of Sámi themselves. We especially wanted to direct the exhibition to the Sámi, concentrating on how to tell our own narrative. We were sure that if we told the story well enough, visitors would also understand it – regardless of their cultural backgrounds. On the basis of our visitor feedback and Áile Aikio’s dissertation, we have succeeded well in Sámifying the exhibition, Professor Veli-Pekka Lehtola says.

In the renewal process, we developed a new Sámi exhibition language in a unique way by working through several working groups and workshops, engaging a number of museums, artists, craftmakers, researchers and curators in this work.

The renewal of the cultural part of Siida’s main exhibition was funded by Kone Foundation, Finnish Cultural Foundation and Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation. The Sámi Museum also carried out the Interreg project Muittut, muitalusat – The Story of the Sámi by the Sámi – a project connected with the exhibition renewal, financed nationally by the Regional Council of Lapland and coordinated by Researcher Eeva-Kristiina Nylander. The nature part of Siida’s main exhibition was created by Metsähallitus and financed by the State. Biologist Matti Mela was responsible for the manuscript of the nature part. Harri Koskinen from Friends of Industry Ltd was the main designer of Siida’s new exhibition.

The European Commission and Europa Nostra, a citizens’ movement for cultural heritage, granted an award to the Sámi Museum Siida and the National Museum of Finland for their repatriation of cultural heritage in 2021 in the category Citizens Engagement & Awareness-raising. According to the Award Jury, the repatriation of the Sámi Collection represents “an invaluable contribution to the safeguarding of European cultural heritage”.

Almost 300 Sámi participated in the different phases of the repatriation process. They studied objects that belonged to their families, examining their crafting techniques, and participated in the choosing of the repatriated artefacts that would be (and are at present) displayed in the main exhibition of the Sámi Museum and the Northern Lapland Nature Centre Siida.

Áile Aikio: Saamelainen museo? Tutkimus saamelaisen kulttuuriperinnön ontologisesta politiikasta. (“Sámi Museum? A Research on the Ontological Politics of Sámi Cultural Heritage”). University of Lapland.

https://www.ulapland.fi/news/Vaitos-Saamelainen-museo-on-olemassa-samanaikaisesti-monessa-maailmassa/45091/77e7cbf7-b279-4905-84bc-b8648ec4579f

https://www.ulapland.fi/news/Nákkáhallan-Sápmelaš-musea-lea-leahkimin-seammaáigásaččat-máŋgga-máilmmis/30362/77e7cbf7-b279-4905-84bc-b8648ec4579f

Further information:
Taina Pieski, Museum Director, tel. +358 50 5351574
Veli-Pekka Lehtola, Professor, tel. +358 40 578 0492

Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida’s new joint main exhibition Enâmeh láá mii párnááh – These lands are our children was opened June 1^st, 2022. Now in a little over a year, the exhibition has been seen by over 100 000 people!

We are very happy and touched by the positive reception of our new exhibition. The feedback we have received tells us our renewal has been successful.

Our new exhibition has been of interest to both local and travelers alike. A little less than half of the visitors have been Finnish. Most of our foreign visitors have been from Germany and France.

The overall number of visits to Siida is around 120 000 a year. This number includes also visits to Siida Shop, Metsähallitus’ customer service, Inari municipality tourist information, and restaurant Sarrit. In the previous record-breaking year, 2019, 64 000 people of the overall number of visitors visited the exhibitions. This year we are expecting the number of exhibition visitors to rise to well over 65 000, breaking the previous record.