Secret police work and glass-seeking trips abroad - behind the new exhibition is a lot of work by glass museum professionals

At work in Riksu, there is a story series in which the employees of the city of Riihimäki talk about their work.

When a new exhibition opens in the Finnish Glass Museum and people get to admire the works, sighs the registrar Maiju Moilanen with satisfaction. There are months of work behind it. Moilanen is responsible for ensuring that objects borrowed from collectors and other museums are safely transported to the museum.

Registrar is a fairly new job title. At the Finnish Museum of Glass, the registrar prepares loan agreements for objects, tenders and organizes transport, and is responsible for the museum's insurance.

"I am often involved in transport. For example, for the Nanny Stilli glass art exhibition that just ended, we borrowed objects from private collections around Finland," says Moilanen.

Around 50 Nanny Still glassware were collected from a collector living in Sweden. Moilanen packed the day's glass into padded transport boxes. The transport is usually handled with the help of a company specializing in art transport, because condition monitoring, routing, scheduling and properly attaching the load to the car require expertise.

The museum does not pay for the loan of the objects to collectors, but takes care of the transport costs and insurance. Collectors are usually industry enthusiasts who want to display their own collections. Works are also borrowed from other museums.

Hugely invisible work

Objects from the glass museum are also loaned to other museums, both in Finland and abroad. Moilanen always carries out a condition survey of the borrowed items. This year, the Art and everyday objects exhibition of the Finnish Glass Museum has been on display in Nurmeksi. The Icons and their creators exhibition is leaving for Jyväskylä soon.

"I photograph the object from all angles, go through the damage and record the information. Accurate documentation is important for insurance purposes. Sometimes it appears in the condition survey that the object cannot withstand transport. Then we replace it with another object."

Moilanen also digitizes objects together with the museum assistant and the Photographer. Most recently, Helena Tynell's original drawings were under work.

The museum is full of valuable objects, and Moilanen's most important tasks are to ensure that the insurance amounts of the objects remain correct and up-to-date.

"Working with museum objects is wonderful and varied. It was great to meet Nanny Still's daughter, Nona McKinney, and hear the stories of the items she brought to the exhibit. Objects and their preservation are important. Museum work is my passion," says Moilanen.

The memory of the nation

Collection amanuence Elina Karila describes the museum as a society's memory organization that lives strongly in the present.

"We don't only work with history, but we also store information about the contemporary phenomena of Finnish glass, both for today's needs and for the future. The theme can be both packaging and art glass, or contemporary art. Very interesting is bioactive glass, a bone substitute and ossification-promoting substance that does not become inflamed," says Karila.

When talking to people in the glass industry, Karila hears about new phenomena. He closely follows the glass industry, and most recently, museum visitors filmed the production of recycled glass at the Iittala glass factory. The museum has also documented artists who use recycled glass.

"Glass is a very energy-intensive industry, and in the future we will certainly document how the energy crisis has affected glass studios and glass manufacturing."

There are approximately 40 objects in the collections of the Finnish Museum of Glass, of which only a small part can be seen by the public. The Finnish Museum of Glass is one of the nationally responsible museums regulated by law, which is responsible for maintaining and sharing information about Finnish glass.

"Collection management with electronic collection management tools is the core of my work. Collections are increased, objects are cataloged and studied. In the future, we will start publishing information digitally so that the public can also see the objects in the museum's storage. We will soon publish Annila's collection of old glass in Finland. Finna is an information search service that offers free access to the digital materials and collection catalogs of about a hundred Finnish archives, libraries and museums."

Interesting color experiments

Karila is in charge of the information service, which constantly receives a lot of inquiries from abroad. For example, information is asked about designers and the families of glassblowers.

"We have Finland's largest glass library, which you can come and explore by making an appointment."

Many donation offers come to the museum, but only a few end up in the collections. The goal is a representative overview of the activities of individual designers, artists or factories.

"The material included in the collections must have, for example, historical significance, artistic value, or they tell about new technology. Some time ago, we received the color test samples of the lamp glass manufactured at the Airam factory, about which the donor also had detailed background information."

Karila admits that she looks at the most important auction house catalogs every day with interest, even though the museum only has limited opportunities to acquire new ones.

"Now we are working on an exhibition presenting vases and bowls designed by Alvar Aalto, which will open in May. I research what can be found in our museum's own collections and negotiate with collectors to borrow vases. Sometimes the search for objects resembles detective work, where the Friends of the Finnish Glass Museum association helps a lot."

Reija Ypyä

 

The Finnish Glass Museum is internationally renowned

"Maintaining international cooperation is part of the national responsible museum work of the Finnish Museum of Glass. The museum has produced exhibitions abroad since 1983. There are currently three active touring exhibitions. In Oiva's Wonderland, which presents Oiva Toika's glass, was exhibited in Germany last year, and six exhibition locations abroad have already been agreed upon, but the information is not yet public," says museum director Hanna Mamia-Walther.

An exhibition presenting Christmas decorations from Laucha is opening this year in Germany. Still Life – Nanny Still's glass, design and art exhibition is sold to Europe. The Finnish Museum of Glass also produces exhibitions presenting foreign glass art in Finland.

The Finnish glass museum is considered the third most prestigious glass museum in the world in professional circles. The best-known and most prestigious glass museums in the world are the Corning Museum of Glass in New York state, USA, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Finnish Glass Museum in Riihimäki.

"This can be seen in the number of international visitors and experts and in the number of contacts. When our museum opened in its current location, the Corning Museum of Glass donated its image material for our core exhibition. We just met representatives of Corning and the cooperation will intensify again in the future", says Mamia-Walther.