EXHIBITION: The Secret Life of Objects

The Secret Life of Objects, an Interactive Map of Finnish Design
18.3. - 1.6.2008

The Secret Life of Objects, an Interactive Map of Finnish Design is a selection of objects from the collections dating from 1874 to 2008 on show in the Design Museum. In the interactive map visitors can give their comments about the objects and enjoy comments that were left by other visitors. The Secret Life of Objects is a project done in collaboration between Design Museum and Media Lab, University of Art and Design Helsinki.

We organized workshops in which teenagers and children were invited to work with design objects using music, poetry, photography and drawing. Audio-visual materials gathered in the workshops are accessible in the exhibition and on-line through the interactive map and the blog .

Visitors can comment on the historical material related to the objects, on the material coming from the workshops, on the objects of the exhibition, on other visitors' comments, on the exhibition as a whole, and on the future design.

This project is making the museum collection accessible to new audiences (children, teenagers, and virtual communities), to different moments (after, during and before the visit), to linguistic minorities (written material in Swedish, English and Finnish) and to different perspectives and vocabularies (visitors’ and museum staff’s). In parallel it is is improving access by showing different materials (videos, poems, music and drawings) coming from museum’s resources (workshops). All these possibilities allow people with different abilities to enhance the museum visit experience.

Working team at Design Museum:
Leena Svinhufvud (production coordination)
Harri Kivilinna (exhibition designer)
Hanna Kapanen (workshop guide)
Elina Eerola (texts, photos, workshop guide)
Susanna Vakkari (texts)
Jukka Savolainen (exhibition collaboration, information/media)
Merja Vilhunen (image archives, internet solutions)
Selection of objects: Leena Svinhufvud, Elina Eerola, Marianne Aav, Harri Kivilinna, Jukka Savolainen

Working team at Media Lab, University of Art and Design Helsinki:
Mariana Salgado (production coordination and designer)
Diana De Sousa (graphic and video designer)
Tommi Jauhiainen (computing support)
Mikko Laitinen (video support)
Atte Timonen (software designer)
Lily Diaz (expert advisor)

External collaborator:
Matti Luhtala/TunnelVision (sound designer)

Our special thanks to:
Andrea Botero, Ilpo Kari, Pekka Salonen, Tuukka Teponoja, Vennu Nivalainen and Ville Tikkanen from Media Lab. The active collaboration from 9 children and 2 teachers from a kindergarten in Helsinki, who made possible the first workshop serie "Esa and the Objects".
Rody Van Gemert who planned and organized with us the "Sound of objects" workshop. Thanks to the guitar students that brought creative ideas and stories to the objects. Special thanks to sound designer Matti Luhtala for helping with the edition of the sound from the workshop and the concert. Thanks to Petteri Laukkanen, Sound Designer, from Suomen kansallisooppera that lend us the microphones. Outi-Maria Takkinen (Titi) and Nana Smulovitz-Mulyana from Nuoren Voima Liito and Annantalo for bringing your students and ideas to our workshop serie: Odes of Objects. Many thanks to the participants that wrote Odes for the objects in the exhibition and allow us to publish them in the Interactive Map.

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Esineiden Salatut Elämät
18.3. - 1.6.2008

Designmuseon suomalaisen muotoilun perusnäyttelyä uudistetaan. Esineiden Salatut Elämät -näyttelyssä on esinettä museon kokoelmista vuosilta 1874 – 2008. Näyttelystä on tehty interaktiivinen kartta, johon kerätään kävijöiden omia ajatuksia ja näkemyksiä esineistä. Kartta on käytettävissä myös internetissä. Näyttely kuuluu Designmuseon 135-vuotisjuhlan ohjelmaan.

Esineiden Salatut Elämät on toteutettu yhteistyössä Taideteollisen korkeakoulun MediaLabin kanssa. Näyttelyssä kerättyjä aineistoja käytetään tutkimuksessa.

STAND

The stand integrates the objects in the exhibition, its design historical information and the visitors' comments. An interactive map with the layout of the permanent exhibition is the interface (built using
ImaNote). On the map it’s possible to navigate different materials related to the design objects, leave comments and links to Internet resources.

Through the stand, the design historical and documentative material by museum experts is exhibited in parallel to stories gathered from museum visitors. In the first stage results and different audio-visual materials from the workshops (Esa and the Objects, The Sound of Objects and Odes for the Objects) are displayed. Visitors can comment on these results, on the objects from the exhibition and on other visitors' comments.

Comments can be made on-site using the interactive stand in the museum or on-line from a remote station (ex. at home). By allowing comments before, during and after the visit is a way our aim is to extend and enrich the dialogue within the museum community.

The interactive stand was tested during two days in November 2007. Its pilot version is in use in a series of events from January to May 2008. During the "Secret Life of Objects, an interactive map" exhibition, the interactive stand is all day open to the general public. So, you can use it in the Design Museum and Take a look or leave your message here/ Jätä viesti tähän


Keydates
During January and February the interactive stand was open to the public during the workshops or events in the museum as during the opening of Sauma Exhibition and Yrjö Kukkapuro. From 21.02.08 to 24.02.08 the interactive stand is open to the public the whole day because of Winter Holidays in Finland.
In the exhibition: The Secret Life of Objects 18.3. - 1.6.2009 the stand is accessible all day.

The project in brief

"The Secret Life of Objects" is a research project done in collaboration between the Media Lab of the University of Art and Design and the Design Museum in Helsinki. The project started with the Museum's initiative to develop services for the permanent exhibition of Finnish modern design.

The project develops and at the moment has its own exhibition: The Secret Life of Objects, an Interactive Map of Finnish Design. From 18.03.08 to 1.06.08 in Design Museum.

From the museum point of view the main idea of the project was to explore how to discuss design objects with different groups, using different media resources. We organized workshops in which teenagers and children were invited to work with design objects using music, poetry, photography and drawing. Audio-visual materials gathered in the workshops are accessible in the exhibition and on-line through the interactive map and the blog .

The central question of the research project is how to design for participation in museums and what are the expected results of this participation. The interactive map is used as case study of visitors participating in co-creating the message of the exhibition. Visitors can comment on the historical material related to the objects, on the material coming from the workshops, on the objects of the exhibition, on other visitors' comments, on the exhibition as a whole, and on the future design.

It is also part of this project the development of a video production framework for documenting the workshops and started to make concepts for new uses of the materials.

In a later stage we will develop a concept for the Design Museum's own web TV channel, using the material created during the workshop with children in an attempt to take them to kindergartens outside Helsinki.

Contact Person: Mariana Salgado msalgado@taik.fi

Esa and the Objects workshops

“Esa ja esineet” (Esa and the objects) is a series of workshops designed for five-year old children exploring a series of design objects (5) of the Museum’s permanent exhibition. The aim is to collaborate with the Design Museum team in the research of the methods for discussing design objects especially with children, and at the same time introduce them to several different digital media tools.

Each workshop starts with the children watching a puppet show. The puppet (Esa) dreams about a mysterious object. After watching the show the children are invited to discuss about that object, what kind of object it is, is it familiar to them, what is it used for. They are also given a context for the theme object inside finnish design.

Following the discussion children are given a task where they can express their own views and feelings for the object, by producing new objects or new contexts for the object. They take pictures of their works using digital cameras and are asked to briefly tell their stories at the end of the workshop straight to a web cam mounted on a computer with Internet access.

The whole process is documented in video format, not only to be kept in the Museum’s archive but also to support later developments of the project such as the Museum web TV.

The first series of workshops took place in November 2007 in Helsinki.

Open letter from the objects to the visitor/ Avoin kirje Esineiltä museokävijälle.

Dear Visitor,

We, the objects in this exhibition, represent the permanent collection of the Design Museum. We are not from your kitchen, or the living room or from your granny's home. We are here, in this display, separated from the everyday function or context. But through your comments we can be part of many stories and places.

This exhibition is a courageous one; it is open. It needs your stories, feelings or ideas to be completed.

The collecting of comments started some time ago. Visitors wrote poems,
made music, drawings and stories inspired by us in workshops and events organised in the museum.

Now is your turn to comment:
How do you see us? How do you use us? Do you connect us with a moment or a person in your life? How do you find this exhibition in general? And what kind of design in your opinion, do we need?

Kind regards,

The Museum Objects

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Avoin kirje Esineiltä museokävijälle.

Rakas museokävijä,

Me tämän näyttelyn esineet edustamme Designmuseon suomalaisen muotoilun peruskokoelmaa. Me emme siis ole keittiöstäsi tai olohuoneestasi tai isoäitisi kotoa. Olemme täällä, museon näyttelyssä, erossa arjen yhteyksistä ja käytöstä. Sinun ajatustesi välityksellä pääsemme kuitenkin osallisiksi monista tarinoista ja paikoista.

Näyttelymme on avoin / vajavainen. Se odottaa sinun tarinoitasi, tunnelmiasi tai ajatuksiasi tullakseen todeksi.

Ajatusten kokoaminen alkoi jo jonkin aikaa sitten. Museokävijät kirjoittivat runoja, tekivät musiikkia, piirsivät ja kertoivat tarinoita meidän innostamanamme museolla järjestettyjen työpajojen aikana.

Nyt on sinun vuorosi: Miten sinä näet meidät? Miten käytät meitä? Liitätkö meidät johonkin tapahtumaan tai henkilöön elämässäsi? Mitä ajattelet tästä näyttelystä yleisesti? Ja minkälaista muotoilua me sinun mielestäsi tarvitsemme?

Ystävällisin terveisin,

Museoesineet

Interactive MAP

This is an Interactive MAP of the Permanent Exhibition in the Design Museum Helsinki.
See the map or leave comments.

The aim is to collect comments coming from visitors. There are comments left by visitors coming to special events, to workshops or to a casual visits to the museum. Adults and children added their comments. We have produced comments using different media formats, as music that children have done inspired in the objects (See the workshop "The Sound of Objects") of the exhibition and comments in the form of videos left with a web cam during workshops with kindergarten children (See the workshops "Esa ja Esineet"). We have comments left in-situ, in the exhibition and comments that visitors left from home. We got poems, memories, feelings, opinions about the functionality of the objects in the exhibition. We collected comments in Finnish and English, but we encourage people to leave comments also in Swedish.

Odes for Objects Workshop

This workshop serie took place during 12.02.08 with students from Nuoren Voima Liito and on the 13.02.08 with students from Annantalo. Invited groups came to make odes, short stories and sentences for publicity inspire on the objects.
Following Pablo Neruda's first attempts to make odes based on daily objects, we propose to invite others to do the same.
Please, read the odes in the interactive map. (in Finnish).
Here is the famous ode to the objects, by Neruda (in Finnish)

Oodi esineille

Rakastan esineitä, hullu
hullun lailla,
pidän hohtimista,
saksista,
jumaloin kuppeja,
metallirenkaita,
kulhoja,
puhumatta tietenkään
hatuista.

Rakastan
kaikkia esineitä,
en vain
kaikkein suurimpia
vaan
ihan
loput
toman
pieniäkin,
sormustinta,
kannuksia,
lautasia,
vaaseja.

Voi minun päiviäni,
kaunis
on planeettamme,
täynnä piippuja
joita käsi
kuljettaa
sauhupilvessä,
avaimia,
suolakuppeja,
loppujen lopuksi
kaikkea
mitä ihmisen käsi
on muovannut, kaikenlaista kamaa,
käppyräisiä kenkiä,
kangasta,
kultaa
jota syntyy uudelleen
veren vuotamatta,
silmälaseja,
nauloja,
luutia,
kelloja, nastoja,
kolikoita, pehmeää
pehmeämpiä tuoleja.
...

ote Pablo Nerudan runosta
Oodi esineille
suom. Pentti Saaritsa

First workshop
Organizers: Hanna Kapalanen (Design Museum), Mariana Salgado (UIAH) and Outi-Maria Takkinen (Titi) (Nuoren Voima Liito).
Participants: sanataideryhmä


Activities:
Presentation of the project and people involved. Guided tour in the exhibition based on the three pairs of selected objects. (20 min)
There was a short presentation of the Interactive MAP of the Permanent Exhibition and we deliver the leaflets so participants have the link to go an add more comments/writings in the map, after the workshop.

First task:
Make the short story based on the music done for the UFO and the Ufo itself.
After they read the stories to everyone.

Second Task:
Mariana presents the idea of odes and Pablo Neruda’s work with them. We read the Ode to the Objects in Spanish and Finnish. Then we gave them pictures with the objects selected. Eliel Nojatuoli (Eliel Saarinen) vs Trice (Hannu Kähönen), Big Mouth (Tani Muhonen) vs Lokki (Maija Isola) and Block lamp (Harri Koskinen) with Karhu (Eila Minkkinen) .
Parcipants have chosen the couple of objects they want to work with or a single one from these.
They read aloud to the whole group.

End of the workshop, thanks and applause.

Second workshop
Organizers: Hanna Kapalanen (Design Museum) and Mariana Salgado (UIAH).
Participants: Annantalo group.
Teacher: Nana Smulovitz-Mulyana


Activities:
Presentation of the project and people involved. Guided tour in the exhibition highlighting the the 1920s and the begining of the publicity campaigns. (20 min)
There was a short presentation of the Interactive MAP of the Permanent Exhibition and we deliver the leaflets so participants have the link to go an add more comments/writings in the map, after the workshop.

First task:
Make a some phrases for the publicity of the perfum bottle by Greta-Lisa Jädernhörm-Snellman.

Second task:
Mariana presents the idea of odes and Pablo Neruda’s work with them. We read the Ode to the Objects in Spanish and Finnish. Then we gave them pictures with the objects selected. Eliel Nojatuoli (Eliel Saarinen) vs Trice (Hannu Kähönen), Big Mouth (Tani Muhonen) vs Lokki (Maija Isola) and Block lamp (Harri Koskinen) with Karhu (Eila Minkkinen) .
Parcipants have chosen the couple of objects they want to work with or a single one from these.
They read aloud to the whole group.

End of the workshop, thanks and applause.

Workshop 5: Recycling

29^th of November 2007:

This workshop took place at Design Museum and had the topic of recycled material. The workshop structure deferred slightly from the first workshops for it took place in a new surrounding for the children.

During the workshop the spaces of the permanent collection and Design Studio were used. As an example for design-art out of recycled material Janna Syvänoja’s necklace was used. During the active working process the children produced together with the workgroup a candelabrum out of old toys and various materials.

Mariana Salgado introduced the children to a pilot version of an interactive stand.

Workshop 4: Savoy vase

20^th of November 2007:

The last workshop dealt with a Finnish design classic: the Savoy-vase by Alvar Aalto.

In the puppet show and further workshop procedure the Savoy-inspired fabric by Kimmo Sarje was used. Besides receiving more information about the backgrounds of Savoy-vase the children got the task to draw the form of the vase on acrylic boards. On a second acrylic board they could draw fancy motives, which came to their mind.

Again digital media were part of the workshop.

Workshop 3: Fiskars scissors

13^th of November 2007:

The topic of the third workshop was form and function. The children received further information about Fiskars scissors.

In the puppet show the Fiskars-scissors changed their “character” to flying and dancing scissor-birds. As a working task the children were asked to create their own scissor character. Afterwards they took pictures of their character and showed it to the web cam.

Workshop 2: Lokki textile

8^th of November 2007:

This workshop dealt with printed fabric, in specific the Lokki-textile (a pattern created by Marimekko-designer Maija Isola).

After Esa’s show (who introduced once more the design object) the children were split into two groups: in one group the children created their own “Lokki scenery” and the other group dealt with the web cam receiving more information about Maija Isola and her work. After 15 minutes the groups changed. Parts of the workshop were again digital media.

The Sound of Objects- Esineiden ääni

The workshop with Itä-Helsingin musiikkikoulu (music school in Helsinki) was organized in aim to create a soundscape from objects of Design Museum's permanent exhibition and to provide material that inspires others to create their own. Here we present the activities, participants and expected results.

Place: Design Museum - Permanent Exhibition
Date: 18.01.08
Time: 10am-1pm

Organizers:
Hanna Kapanen and Mirjam Krafft (Design Museum)
Rody Van Gemert (Itä-Helsingin musiikkikoulu) and
Mariana Salgado (UIAH).
Video Camera: Diana De Sousa (UIAH)
Sound: Matti Luhtala and Mariana Salgado

Participants: Five students from “Itä-Helsingin musiikkikoulu” around the age of 12 years.

Results: Some of the material recorded during the workshops will be shown for the public in the museum through an interactive installation. This is part of our on going exploration about how to make visible and accessible the material gathered from the workshops organized in the Design Museum.
We aim at making a short concert for the parents, inviting them to come to the museum during one afternoon in which we will also show how the materials recorded can be listened in connection with the objects exhibited.

The workshop in detail:
1) Introduction of the project, the workshop activities and the people participating (5min).
2) Brief guide to the whole exhibition highlighting the objects with which the children were going to be working afterwards (15min).
3) First task: composing with objects. We present some of the object (different shapes of drinking glasses and glass vases) and tell to the children they can take them and experiment with them for a while. The selection of glass objects included drinking glasses by Aino Aalto, Savoy by Alvar Aalto and Ultima Thule by Tapio Wirkkala. After they have tried to play with the glass items we ask them to listen to each others sounds and imitate it. This is repeated so that everyone gets the chance to test every object. The teacher will also give some examples. (20min)
4) Second task: Improvising with contrasts. We divide the group in two and present to each group a different pair of objects. They can try to improvise based on the characteristics of each object. After they have finished with one pair they receive another. All together there are three pairs of objects. The pairs of objects are: Teema mug by Kaj Franck/Hämähäkki(spider) by Bertel Gardberg, Fiskars scissors of Olof Bäckström/Lokki, a printed fabric by Maija Isola, Pastilli chair by Eero Aarnio/Stackable stool by Alvar Aalto. Children present to the other group the sounds they created. The other group can guess which object the piece of music represents. (1 hour)
5) Third task: Children wait with their eyes closed for a surprise. The UFO (Ilmankostuttaja) appears in the air. They improvise all together based on the object. The task is to create a story based on it. After they are finished they play the musical piece they created to Hanna and Mirjam who were absent during the working process. They try to guess what happens in the story. (15min)
6) Thanking the group, end of the workshop.
7) Lunch time. During lunch we will ask them questions about the workshop. Did they like it? Do they want to come again to the Museum? What was the best part of the visit?
8) After lunch they have one more chance to walk around the exhibition.