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Wilppula
17.10.2009 - 3.10.2010
To celebrate the consolidation of the municipalities of Mänttä and Vilppula, Serlachius museum Gustaf is presenting the town of Vilppula and its people to its visitors.
Historical archive photographs as well as Timo Nieminen´s photos guide exhibition visitors to Vilppula´s way of life. Pekka Kejonen´s bespoke poems for the exhibition cast light on atmospheres in Vilppula in past and present times.
The exhibition´s photos and poems portray Vilppula´s nature and culture and the homes and sources of livelihood of its people. Vilppula´s rich musical life from Oskar Merikanto to Emmi is heard with the help of multimedia. A documentary records Vilppula´s status as a centre of waterborne and railway traffic. Visitors will be face to face with photos of almost a hundred of Vilppula´s inhabitants, whose eyes seem to be looking for their home windows among the dozens of exhibition pictures. And Vilppula´s beautiful nature is glowing in Nieminen´s dazzling photos.
Educational curator and exhibition designer Päivi Nieppola emphasizes the role of the people of Vilppula in the project: "Over 50 people from Vilppula, many of them members of Vilppula Society, have been whole-heartedly involved in exhibition preparations by helping us acquire exhibition material and articles. I thank them greatly."
Pekka Kejonen summarizes the many decades of Vilppula´s cultural life in the following way:
Culture
For once, let's have a big summer party,
let's invite all the people that have come & gone.
Oskar Merikanto is leading a massive choir, Vilppula's Male Choir
and others and local brass bands are there as well.
Emmi is the soloist.
Visiting author Juhani Aho is holding a speech for the occasion
and when he's off for the rapids, it's poet J.H. Erkko's turn.
The women of Kuutola's textile and garden school
are presenting their handiwork
under the landscape props by painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela.
Reform school boys are doing gymnastics.
There's local art around the court:
Leo Honko, Viktor Roive, Eero Aittosen and others.
You can admire them as you please.
Doctor Lybeck is also on duty there,
helping the exhausted climb trees for a repose.
Perhaps some anxious patient, "nervös", is given electric shocks, but he's out of sight.
Gentlefolk all the way from Mänttä arrive to admire
Vilppula's careless yet good-mannered goings-on,
and things yet improve as Rattus is let loose.
Jamming continues at the rapids until daylight.
There's an endless number of performers strolling around the court,
both those that have lived here and occasional visitors.
Vilppula has too much culture to offer for a single party
or for a single poem too.
Of course, some doubt this, but that belongs to culture as well.
Believe and marvel, everyone mentioned
- and lots of others -
have either lived or been here, at Vilppula.
And they will live on; everyone in their own way.
Pekka Kejonen
Childhood Stories
29.5.2009-31.12.2011
In his new exhibition, Gustaf presents stories of childhood as told through the generations.
Visitors to this exciting exhibition step onto a huge game board, transporting them from one childhood memory exhibit to another. "We decided to make a shamelessly nostalgic exhibition. It mirrors the emotions that childhood memories arouse in most people. Collected folklore material show that the older you get, the rosier you believe your childhood to have been," says exhibition designer Päivi Viherkoski.
Childhood will be presented to exhibition visitors using multimedia, recorded stories and film as well as more conventional mediums: pictures, texts and exhibition pieces. The combination of photographs and drawings gives the exhibition a fresh look. Tarja Väätänen, the museum´s head of exhibitions, is responsible for the exhibition´s visual design and the splendid drawings on display are also her work.
The vast game board covering the exhibition space is one of the largest single floor prints made in Finland. The extraordinary size of the print was a challenging technical feat in itself, and the printing of the image onto hard-wearing laminate flooring is also a remarkable achievement.
PHOTO:
Wilppula
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