A citizen’s museum was opened at the Helsinki railway station, where anyone can go and hold an exhibition

Helsinki a new exhibition space called the Finnish Civic Museum will open on Friday at the main train station.

The facility is located in the west wing of the station on the Elielinaukio side. The space is an entrance hall in the middle of the shopping corridor, from which there is access to both Elielinaukio and the station platforms.

The civic museum has been realized together with the main train station and the communications office Fabrik.

To exhibitions admission is free, and the operating idea is to offer the space free of charge to any exhibitor as well. The condition is that the exhibition is related to Finnishness.

You can freely propose your own works for the exhibition, and the works to be displayed are selected based on the proposals.

“The subject must be from the field of Finnish culture and the most important thing is that it tells something new,” says Fabrik’s creative director responsible for the operations of the Finnish Civic Museum Ville Timonen.

The theme of Finnishness has also been a topic of interest for nationalist political movements, and for example, the free-to-use spaces of libraries have also been used from time to time for events by political groups. The station’s exhibition space is intended for art and culture.

“This is not a political forum. That is not its function,” says Timonen

The Civic Museum the opening exhibition does not yet present anything new from the field of Finnish culture, but classics of domestic design.

On display is Tapio Wirkkalan Glass works presented at the Milan Triennale in the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibition has been made together with the trade council Kyösti Kakkonen With the Collection Kakkonen collection.

“The first exhibition looks back at how Finland has been shaped. After that, there may very well be something to do at the grassroots level here in the present,” says Ville Timonen.

On display until mid-February When Finland was shaped -exhibition is exceptionally on the second floor of the hall. There is an entrance fee of two euros. The following exhibitions will be built downstairs.

Correction 16.1. at 8:11 a.m.: Contrary to what was said earlier in the article, the When Suomea formoiltiin exhibition has an entrance fee of two euros.