The Sámi Museum acquires and documents Sámi cultural heritage in Finland

The National task of the Sámi Museum is to acquire and document Sámi cultural heritage in Finland. At the core of this work is our collection, which includes artefacts, photographs, art, the buildings of our open-air museum, and archival and reference material. We store, maintain, manage and show our collections and do research connected to them.

The collection mission is guided by the Collection Management Policy of the Sámi Museum, that is under revision currently.

The previous version of the policy is available here in Finnish (pdf, 2 Mt).

The artefact and photograph collections accumulate mainly through new donations and through our own active documentation of today’s phenomena. As our collections are already fairly extensive, any acquisitions we make are a result of careful consideration. However, we hope to have donations of photographs from the early 2000s with a low threshold.

Get acquaintance with the collections in Siida and on the Internet

Our collections on the culture and the perspectives of the Sámi in the different eras are available to visit in Siida’s main exhibition and changing exhibitions.

You can also browse the treasures of the Museum’s collections online in the Finna Information Service, and look at the 3D models of our artefacts on the website of Sketchfab. So far the Sámi Museum’s photograph collections haven’t been published online.

Current information on the Museum’s collections activities can be found on Siida’s website and social media channels.

The collections are meant for the users

Communality is the primary value of our work on our collections. The work is based on interaction as well as on the participation of the community and its planning, and development. The collections of the Sámi Museum exist for the greater audience interested in them, but especially for their active users – the members and the researchers of the Sámi community. In our collections work, we especially want to emphasize the needs and hopes of these groups.

Our collection personnel answer to customers’ questions on our collections through e-mail and telephone. We kindly request to fulfill the Application for research permission and send it signed to us via e-mail or regular mail, if you wish to study the Museum Collection’s objects or photographs.

You can find the Application for research permission and instructions for filling it out here:

We loan our museum artefacts to other museums, and artefacts from our collection in use to other actors too. We hope that, in matters dealing with research and loans, you will contact us at least two weeks in advance.

You can order digital copies of the photos. Possible fees according to the image service price list may be charged for digital copies.