Greetings from Salla! - Salla Visitor Centre
The nature exhibition in Salla Visitor Centre was updated in 2021-2022 as the large nature reservation area in Salla gained a National Park status. My task as an exhibition designer was to create a new cultural history themed exhibition element to supplement the existing exhibition. It had to fit to a small space of 1 x 2 m between large reindeer dioramas.
Together with Inga-Maaret Aikioniemi we created a concept for the new exhibition element. It has three themes - reindeer herding, hunting and fishing traditions in Salla area, and Tuntsan palo in the year 1960, which the largest forest fire in Finnish history. The exhibition element is based around the idea of post cards - we wanted to give visitors personal feeling glimpses to the history of the area, and decided to write the texts in the form of post cards.
The exhibition consists of ten post cards printed on birch wood featuring historical images from Salla area sourced from local museums and private collections. The texts in the cards were written based on local's interviews. Aikioniemi focused on the text content while I was responsible for the visual elements and the planning the structure of the exhibition element. The exhibition is multisensory, and has also stories and interviews in audio form. One shelf is dedicated to findings from the ancient fishing fields of the the area.
The new exhibition element was built by a local carpenter according to my design. While building the new exhibition element, also the space was renovated, and I was responsible for the interior design of the exhibition. The colours and materials were chosen to bring warmth to the space and to fit the existing elements of the rest of the exhibition.
