Paper short abstract:

The “Echo of the Urals” exhibition at the Estonian National Museum is dedicated to the Finno-Ugric indigenous peoples and concentrated on gender roles. I discuss how the Finno-Ugrians participated in preparation of the display and how they later reacted to the result.

Paper long abstract:

After almost ten years of preparation, the permanent exhibition “Echo of the Urals” was opened in 2016 at the Estonian National Museum. The exhibition is dedicated to the Finno-Ugric indigenous peoples (language relatives to the Estonians) and concentrated on gender roles, revealed through ethnographic display. The exhibition presents more than twenty Finno-Ugric indigenous groups, inhabiting Russia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Latvia and Estonia.

The exhibition team’s concern was to involve people from these Finno-Ugric areas to preparation of the display. Remoteness of many Finno-Ugric areas from Estonia limited our chances to achieve a really tight participation of these groups to our ethnographic endeavour. Still, we managed to connect many indigenous Finno-Ugric experts to the curating process as consultants, donators of ethnographic items and background narrators. Besides, our expert team included two indigenous Finno-Ugrians and was led by one of them.

After opening the ethnographic show, another dimension of this dialogue between curators and indigenous partners emerged. Because complicated travel arrangements, many Finno-Ugrians are not able to visit our exhibition. Still, as the display has gained solid coverage in conventional and social media, people have got a chance to reflect fragments of the exhibition, as available through various channels.