Queering the art collections - A different reading of the collections of the Finnish National Gallery

The route has been produced in partnership with the museum units and the Culture for All Service and is written by art historian and Pro Artibus curator Juha-Heikki Tihinen. As well as a Finnish version, the route is also available in Swedish and English. Check out the route here.

"The national collection has never been homogenous or austere. It is varied and surprising, especially if you look at it through different eyes. In front of works of art many people have been able to shape their own identity in a new way and find alternative realities in history. History is not solely for heterosexuals," says Juha-Heikki Tihinen.

The openness of the collections will also be discussed this week at the theme day for the museum sector Right to the collections! (7-8 February 2013). The seminar will be run in partnership by The Community Relations and Development Department Kehys at the Finnish National Gallery and the National Board of Antiquities´ Development Services. The programme is aimed at the entire museum sector and also at other bodies interested in developing the work of museums. The program can be found in Finnish here.

The openness of the art museum and its collections also means reading history and the collections in a different way and reassessing them. Reading differently fosters new ways of opening up and organising information about art and cultural history, paying greater attention to the way in which human diversity and the structuring of identity are bound by history, culture and geography. This enables different, previously silenced stories and forgotten histories to become visible. The Finnish National Gallery has opened its collections to different readings in other ways too, including the Queer guided tours run in summer 2012 in partnership with the Culture for All Service.

The Finnish National Gallery is Finland´s largest art museum organisation and a national cultural institution, whose main units are the Ateneum Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Sinebrychoff Art Museum and the Central Art Archives. The aim of the Finnish National Gallery´s accessibility and diversity strategy is to strengthen the museum´s position as a cultural institution which speaks to the entire population and is open to all.