Earlier seasonal exhibitions
The Museum has housed eight seasonal exhibitions since its inauguration in 2003. Little online material is available of them, but future seasonal exhibitions will also be featured online.
Three currencies, two centuries, one Bank of Finland
The Bank of Finland Museum will launch its new seasonal exhibition on 20 January 2011, ‘Three currencies, two centuries, one Bank of Finland’. The exhibition commemorates the Bank of Finland’s 200th anniversary.
The exhibition aims at presenting how monetary reforms affect the lives of ordinary citizens. Changing one form of cash, or even an entire currency, for another is always a major event. Changing this key factor of everyday life forces people to think again about the prices of the goods they buy and the value of their assets. The Bank of Finland was founded in 1811 specifically to oversee the changing of the currency used in Finland at that time, from Swedish riksdaler to Russian rouble. This seasonal exhibition at the Bank of Finland Museum tells the story of the monetary changes that have occurred since then, during the 200-year history of the Bank of Finland.
Vitamin D! The Devaluations of 1957 and 1967
The eighth seasonal exhibition at the Bank of Finland museum was opened on 27 October 2009 and it was on display until the end of 2010.
The purpose of the seasonal exhibition is to explain the background to the devaluations in Finland of 1957 and 1967, how the devaluations were brought about and their effect. The exhibitions at to enable the visitor of today to understand the monetary policy environment of a time when parliamentary turnover was so frequent that the average age of a government was only a year.
In the post-war years the Bank of Finland found it had to adjust the external value of the markka countless times. By joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in 1996, stability was brought to the Finnish currency's value. The euro was adopted, initially as scriptural money in 1999, and subsequently the cash changeover was made at the beginning of 2002.
The title of the exhibition, with its reference to 'Vitamin D', does not seem to have been used to refer to the devaluations of the 1950s and 60s, but by the 1980s it had become a firm part of the economic jargon of the time.
Euro - A window to cultural identity
The Museum’s seventh seasonal exhibition was about Euro and it's cultural identity. The euro was launched on 1 January 1999 as scriptural money. Euro in cash form was introduced for the first time in 12 EU member states on 1 January 2002. Except for the printing code and serial number, euro banknotes are identical irrespective of the country in which they are produced or issued. The common side of euro coins is identical in all countries, whereas the obverse or the national side varies from country to country. The national sides show symbols or images that reflect the respective country's culture or what is unique for it. Therefore euro coins most effectively capture what the single currency is all about: in a multifaceted Europe the same currency can be used anywhere in the euro area, regardless of nationality, language or culture.
Cash money is an example of everyday art at its best. Banknotes represent the utmost in graphic design and graphic art, while coins are a prime example of sculpture. In coins in particular, the feel of the material is tangible. Indeed, the feel and unique characteristic of metal are highly prominent in this exhibition. Although in principle each denomination is a mixture of the same material, minted using the same mould, there are variations among the coins of different countries and between different mint batches. This can also be seen as an allegory of European diversity: coins are similar, yet different.
The exhibition was open 8.1.–22.10.2009.
» Open image gallery
Here you can download presentation The national sides of the euro coins are a window to culture
High resolution (PDF, 192 MB)
Low resolution (PDF, 3,28 MB)
Gold – The basis of a monetary system
Open from 8 April to 2 November 2008, the Museum’s sixth seasonal exhibition was about gold as the basis of a monetary system. The exhibition illustrated how gold has been used as a means of exchange and highlighted monetary systems based on gold both in Finland and internationally – without forgetting Lapp gold or the gold collection in the war time. Visitors to this exhibition could view Aleksi, the largest gold nugget ever panned in Finland. It was discovered in Laanila, Inari, in Lapland in 1910.
| Sinikka Salo, member of the Board, receiving guests at the inauguration on 10 January 2006. |
A century of bank advertising
Bank advertising as a symbol of overall economic thinking in society was the theme of the Museum’s 5th exhibition titled ‘One hundred years of bank advertising’. Advertising has been used to direct the public's actions in the use of their funds in whatever direction has been considered desirable. For years, the advertisements highlighted the Finnish virtues of frugality and negativity to consumerism. Old-style advertisements tell of their time in an informative and entertaining manner.
“This exhibition illustrates well Finland’s transition from an old agrarian society to a modern consumer society. In order for loan markets to function well, healthy competition and thus advertising are needed, but some of the current trends in advertising consumer loans are worrying”, said Sinikka Salo, member of the Board, in her inauguration speech.
| Sinikka Salo, member of the Board, delivering her inauguration speech on 9 January 2007. |
Snellman and the Finnish markka
Inaugurated on 10 January 2006, the fourth seasonal exhibition at the Bank of Finland Museum was titled ‘Snellman and the Finnish markka’, as 2006 celebrated 200 years since the birth of Johan Vilhelm Snellman and 125 years since his death. The exhibition ran until the end of 2006.
The exhibition focuses on the period 1863–1868, when Snellman, in his capacity as Chief of Finance at the Treasury, was closely involved with the Bank of Finland. Snellman's most significant achievement while holding this office was stabilisation of Finland's monetary conditions. In 1860, Finland had received a monetary unit of its own called the markka, the value of which was tied to the paper rouble, which continued to fluctuate. By pegging the value of the markka to silver in 1865, and thereby stabilising the value of the currency, J. V. Snellman completed the work of his predecessor Fabian Langenskiöld. The same objective – the stabilisation of the value of money – was also the key motivation behind the next major monetary reform, namely the introduction of the euro some 130 years later.
The exhibition ran from 10 January to 31 December 2006.
| Sinikka Salo, member of the Board, receiving guests at the inauguration on 10 January 2006. |
| Designers of the exhibition Vappu Ikonen, Researcher, and Juha Tarkka, Adviser to the Board. |
The Bank of Finland through cartoonists' eyes
The third seasonal exhibition highlighted how the Bank of Finland has been viewed by political cartoonists from early 1920s to the present day. On display were samples of work by four of Finland's better-known and most productive cartoonists: Kari Suomalainen, Terho Ovaska, Henrik Karlsson and Kaarlo A. Rissanen. Kari Suomalainen was in-house cartoonist for the national quality newspaper Helsingin Sanomat 1966–91 and Terho Ovaska succeeded him, 1991–2005. Henrik Karlsson's penmanship has been published in Helsingin Sanomat since 1986, while Kaarlo A. Rissanen has been creating drawings illustrating the machinations of the economy in the financial journal Kauppalehti since 1969.
| Erkki Liikanen, Governor of the Bank of Finland, and artist Terho Ovaska. |
Euro banknote design proposals on view
Inaugurated on 1 September 2004, the second seasonal exhibition focused on sketch proposals for euro banknote series designs. The sketches were those submitted to the design competition launched by the European Monetary Institute (EMI), the predecessor of the European Central Bank. The competing sketch proposals on display at the Museum changed monthly, with eight series on display at a time. In September 2004, the display featured the Finnish competing entries by artists Erik Bruun, Daniel Bruun and Johanna Bruun. The last sketches were on display in August 2005.
| Erik Bruun and the banknote series. |
The country that paid its debts
Finland’s reputation as a reliable debtor was established in 1932, when Finland paid the instalment in full and on time to the United States on a food loan received in 1919. In 1931, US President Herbert Hoover had granted its European debtor countries a year-long moratorium as part of an arrangement of international economic relations. Finland was the United States’ only debtor country that continued to pay its debt to the end. Between 1933 and 1936, almost 3,000 stories were published in American newspapers on Finland’s debt repayment and on Finland.
Finland continued to meet its regular instalments until the 1940s, when a few years’ moratorium was called because of World War II. At that time, Finnish and US authorities also discussed whether it would be possible to invest the money repaid by Finland into something that would benefit Finland. This aim was met through the ASLA grant fund established in 1951. The last repayment on the debt was made in accordance with a renewed, faster schedule in 1976.
The very first exhibition at the Museum ran from 22 August 2003 to 31 August 2004.
Seasonal exhibitions
The last Finnish markka
(27.1.-31.12.2012)
Three currencies, two centuries, one Bank of Finland
(20.1.2011–Jan 2012)
Vitamin D! The Devaluations of 1957 and 1967
(27.10.2009.–31.12.2010)
Euro - A window to cultural identity
(8.1.–22.10.2009)
Gold – The basis of a monetary system (8.4.–2.11.2008 )
A century of bank advertising (9.1.–30.9.2007)
Snellman and the Finnish markka (10.1.–31.12.2006)
The Bank of Finland through cartoonists' eyes (14.10.–31.12.2005)
Euro banknote design proposals on view (1.9.2004–8/2005)
The country that paid its debts
(22.8.2003–31.8.2004)