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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.