objects
100One object for every year of Finnish independence
Case study / Cultural storytelling / 2017-2018
100 Objects from Finland
A digital exhibition that makes a century of Finnish history explorable through one object from every year of independence.
languages
15A single cultural story made available across borders
tour cities
5Helsinki, Tallinn, Oslo, Madrid, and Riga
ways in
2A chronological timeline and a geographic map
The core interaction
A century you can scan before choosing where to stop.
1917Bark bread
1936Aalto vase mould
1956The Moomins
1987Mobira Cityman
2017Maternity package
01
The premise
A national story made tangible through ordinary things.
The exhibition describes Finland through one object from each year of independence. Everyday products, inventions, personal belongings, design icons, and political artefacts give visitors a concrete way to enter a century of history.
- Each object carries its own year, image, title, and narrative
- The sequence creates a clear beginning, middle, and present day
- Familiar objects make historical themes easier to approach
02
Interaction model
The year became the primary navigation system.
A collection of one hundred stories can easily feel like a database. The interface instead treats chronology as a continuous journey. Visitors can scan the whole century, stop at a familiar year, and move between neighbouring stories without losing their place.
- A long visual timeline reveals the scale of the collection
- Years remain visible as stable orientation points
- Object pages support both focused reading and continued browsing
03
International reach
Multilingual content was part of the product architecture.
The physical exhibition travelled through five European cities, while the online exhibition extended the project into fifteen languages. Language switching had to preserve the selected object and keep the experience coherent across very different writing systems.
- Shared content structure across fifteen language editions
- Persistent object identity while changing language
- Layouts designed to tolerate shorter and longer translations
04
A paired exhibition
The same collection could explain time or place.
The project also exists as Life in Finland, a companion interface that places the objects on a map. The pair shows how one structured collection can support different learning journeys: one through years, another through geography.
- Timeline view for historical sequence
- Map view for regional context
- A reusable content system serving two distinct narratives
Collaboration
A travelling exhibition with a permanent digital home.
The online exhibition carries the curatorial structure beyond the physical tour and keeps the collection available to international audiences, classrooms, and people exploring their own year of birth.
- Curators
- Anna Kortelainen and Pekka Toivanen
- Producer
- Finnish Institute in Estonia
- Visual appearance
- Design Studio Muotohiomo
- Exhibition plan
- Valge Kuup
- Online exhibition
- Haamer Ventures
- Project period
- 2017-2018
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