chronological foundation
1917→Objects connect individual stories to the years of Finnish independence.
Life in Finland / Cultural storytelling / 2017-2018
National history, minus the marble pedestal.
Life in Finland explains a country through the things people made, used, saved, laughed at, and recognised. I shaped the collection so visitors could enter through an ordinary object and leave with a larger story about work, invention, obstacles, and joy.
chosen scale
EverydayRecognition gives visitors a way into history without a lecture.
languages
ManyOne structured collection travels without splitting into separate products.
digital afterlife
Still liveThe collection kept its public value after the exhibition cycle.
The cultural problem
A country is too large for one story. An object is small enough to hold.
National exhibitions often begin with importance and end with distance. Life in Finland reversed that. Bark bread, a lock, banknotes, cough drops, and domestic objects make history concrete because people can picture a hand using them.
The interface needed to protect that intimacy while still supporting chronology, search, comparison, languages, image credits, institutional ownership, and the complete collection. The product had to feel like discovery, not database administration wearing a nicer coat.
The reading model
Recognise something. Follow its story. See the country differently.
- 01Enter through the object
A strong image and plain name create a low-friction invitation.
- 02Connect it to a year
Chronology turns a charming item into evidence of a changing society.
- 03Move across the collection
Search, browsing, and language changes let visitors build their own version of the story.
After the exhibition
The physical tour ended. The public value did not.
Life in Finland continued the material beyond a single venue and audience. The online product gave the stories a longer life, a multilingual reach, and a way to be encountered without knowing the exhibition existed.
Years later, the sensible work was not to declare the old stack sacred. It was to preserve the collection, repair what time had broken, and keep the material accessible. Maintenance is not glamorous. Neither is losing cultural memory because nobody budgeted for an update.
- A reusable content model instead of one-off campaign pages
- Search and navigation that remain useful as the collection ages
- Archiving and restoration treated as product work
HAAM’s role
I turned a collection into a navigable public product.
Product, interface, and operations
HAAM’s role covered the digital product concept, interaction model, interface design, multilingual content structure, responsive implementation, testing, and later stewardship.
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