Life in Finland / Cultural storytelling / 2017-2018

National history, minus the marble pedestal.

I designed a multilingual online exhibition exploring a century of Finnish life through 100 objects.

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Life in Finland digital collection showing Finnish objects and their stories.

chronological foundation

1917→

Objects connect individual stories to the years of Finnish independence.

chosen scale

Everyday

Recognition gives visitors a way into history without a lecture.

languages

Many

One structured collection travels without splitting into separate products.

digital afterlife

Still live

The collection kept its public value after the exhibition cycle.

The cultural problem

History through objects.

Bark bread, locks and banknotes make history easier to enter than an abstract timeline.

The reading model

Object. Year. Collection.

01Choose an object
Begin with a familiar thing.
02Explore its time
Connect it to a year and a story.
03Keep exploring
Browse the whole collection.

Object first

Show the object first.

Images and stories lead; metadata stays available.

Collection logic

Make discovery possible.

Browse by object or date without needing a search term.

Multilingual content

Keep translations together.

One object record powers the language editions.

Stewardship

Preserve the collection.

The online archive outlived the physical exhibition.

After the exhibition

The exhibition lives on online.

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

Digital exhibition design.

I worked on the interface, content model, translations and implementation.

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A large institution that does not need to feel like one.

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