Analysis: A new museum will be opened in Helsinki, but it does not tell anything about Helsinki or Finland

The Paradox Museum concept, which has grown around the world, is expanding to Helsinki. The new museum emphasizes more Instagram than science, writes city journalist Vesa Marttinen.

Paradox refers to something that seems to work, but it seems rational. It can be an idea or an argument that seems to be both true and false at the same time.

Such mental gods will be presented by the Paradox Museum, which will open in Helsinki tomorrow Friday.

The museum, which opens to the city’s parade site, a stone’s throw from the Market Square, presents a total of 45 paradox -based installations that challenge visitors’ perceptions of reality.

Behind the museum is a rapidly international concept. Originally founded in Greece, the Paradox Museum opened its first destination in Oslo, Norway in 2022, and now there are already 13 museums around the world.

In addition to Helsinki, four new museums will be opened this year.

A quick tour of the Helsinki fresh museum leaves a two -way feeling.

The approximately one thousand square meters of business space has been accommodated by exciting mirror rooms, visual fireworks and optical illusions that amaze and smile.

– Visuality is extremely important. Guests want to take pictures in memory. We, too, think that when visitors take pictures on the phone, you can get even more out of experience.

However, the word * museum * is amazed.

According to the dictionary of the Language Office, a museum refers to an apartment that preserves the public’s art or other collections of cultural or natural history.

Paradox Museum Helsinki fits in with the definition with a bit of a bar.

Perhaps this is an exhibition or an experience like Linnanmäki’s former Vekkula. However, the English word *Museum *is more ambiguous and more useful than the Finnish *museum *.

For example, in the United States, the concept * Children’s Museum * is closer to what the Paradox Museum represents: rather playful, funny and inclusive than purely scientific and educational.

Another slightly watery detail of the whole is the lack of localism. There is hardly anything in the Paradox Museum that would tell about Finland or Helsinki.

The museum says in its announcement that the whole sees nuances of the northern color scheme and topics of interest to Finns, but in practice this remains quite thin.

Of course, the installations on display are largely different than, say, Stockholm, but the world that opens inside the walls as such could be located anywhere in the world.

The museum itself is, in a way, a paradox. It looks like a museum and is moderately interesting, but is it actually a museum?

The claim seems to be both true and false at the same time.