Abstract:

The Museum has traditionally been an expert organization. In this paper a participative project, The Nostalgic Women, where the expertise is given to the students is presented. The project discusses to whom the museum belongs and who may have effect in the museum as well as how the voices of the external groups of the museum can be heard in the museum and how the museum answers the questions presented by its users.

In the autumn 2015, 45 students of Bachelor Degree of Beauty and Cosmetics launched a cooperative project with The Lotta Museum and Keuda Vocational College beautician students and as a part of their studies. The project was based on Learning by Development (LbD) pedagogy where students' learning is connected to authentic development projects that are rooted in the world of work. The Lotta Museum is a professionally run specialist museum that records and documents the history of the Lotta Svärd organization and studies the volunteer work of women as part of the history of Finland. The project included workshop activities on the basis of which the students were able to participate in the Museum's content and event production. The main output of the project was a blog named the Nostalgic Women. Beauty and Cosmetics students produced 25 blog posts which combined cosmetic chemistry, wellbeing and culture during the years 1930-1940. The blog posts are published during the year 2016.

The specialty of the project was, that an atypical target group, the students, started to create contents based on their own vocational know-how to the already existing target group of the Museum. Through the content production the Beauty and Cosmetics students were able to present their professional skills to the general public and popularize the science behind cosmetics and cosmetic products. These contents generated by the students have, without exception, got plenty of positive feedback. The blog has a well-established readership. According to the students’ feedback, participative way of working and multiprofessional collaboration was useful and gave the students more knowledge and experience of working life.

The Finnish Association for Museum Education, Pedaali, granted the Annual Award in Museum Pedagogy 2016 to the Nostalgic Women -project. In the view of Pedaali's board, the project represents a new approach to engaging audiences and a new way of making museums more accessible. Collaboration with educational institutions has helped to make the Lotta Museum more appealing to young audiences, which are considered to be a challenging target group, and the project has also demonstrated that the past is still relevant today. At the same time, the Lotta Museum has been able to present its themes on a contemporary platform, to provide them with a broader context and open them to wider audiences. The project has made the museum and the Bachelor Degree of Beauty and Cosmetics more widely known.

Nostalgic Women, http://www.nostalgisetnaiset.fi/
The Lotta Museum, http://www.lottamuseo.fi/en/
The Finnish Association for Museum Education Pedaali, http://www.pedaali.fi/en/news/annual-award-in-museum-pedagogy-goes-to-the-lotta-museum-s-nostalgiset-naiset-nostalgic-women

Keywords:

Blog, Museum education, The Bachelor of Beauty and Cosmetics, The Lotta Museum, Participative project.