Inherit the Dust photograph exhibition became the topic of the summer

The Inherit the Dust photograph exhibition by Nick Brandt, which ended at the National Museum on Sunday 1 September, became one of the highlights of the summer’s exhibition range in Helsinki. The takeover of the habitats of wild animals in East Africa touched exhibition visitors, which was also visible in social media posts and customer feedback. The themes of the exhibition became even more topical in light of the news of the catastrophic Amazon rainforest wildfires.

‘We share responsibility for the planet. Our cultural habits burden the earth, and we all can participate in promoting change and demanding responsibility. We hope that the exhibition has encouraged people to act. Art, such as Nick Brandt’s works in this exhibition, has enormous power, which is needed in order to achieve change. We wanted to give the animals a voice, as it seemed necessary in our time. When talking about culture, humans are usually at the core of it,’ says Director General Elina Anttila of the National Museum of Finland.

Almost 100,000 people visited the exhibition produced by Fotografiska in five months. Schoolchildren loved to expand their exhibition experience through the interactive Bust the Dust game.

At the same time, the Traces exhibition (5 April–4 August) compiled from the collections of the National Museum and displayed at the museum’s pop up space continued the discussion about the relationship between animals and humans.

Next, the National Museum will present the high cultures of Meso-America and the Andes through the exhibition The World That Wasn’t There, opening on 18 October. The exhibition compiled from the private collections of Giancarlo and Inti Ligabue is the first to bring almost 200 Pre-Columbian items to Finland: Zapotec ash urns, Aztec sculptures, Mayan ceramics, vases and textiles from the Nazca area in Peru, as well as gold items from the Moche culture in the Andes.