Oulu Museum’s message rings with joy, love, and pride for our shared cultural heritage.
Oulu Museum’s exhibitions will open during the fall of 2026 in the Museum and Science Centre Tiima. Four brand-new exhibitions will open on Tiima’s opening day October 9, 2026. Oulu: Stories, Punished and Innocent, Children’s Museum – City Pathways, Adventure Factory, as well as the previously opened Metallikausi created in cooperation with Science Centre Tietomaa.
The renewed museum invites visitors to share in the stories of the Oulu region – from the past, present, and future. Oulu Museums brings history alive through multi-voiced stories, participatory experiences, and meaningful objects. The museum’s new operational model and exhibitions are designed together with citizens.
“Oulu Museum means actions to implement sustainability, diversity, and equality. The accelerating societal changes require museums to promote active participation and enable participation instead of just preservation. The museum is creating a more sustainable and multi-voiced future by inviting communities to participate in defining cultural heritage. Over 600 citizens have taken part in renewing the museum through the BestBeloved Museum project”, Project Manager Karoliina Autere describes the backgrounds of the museum and exhibition’s renewal.
Oulu Museum makes cultural heritage more accessible by beginning to publish its collections in the Finna service starting from late-2025. Finna is an information retrieval service that maintains and develops the National Library in cooperation with over 400 operators in Finland. The free-of-charge online service includes millions of cultural and scientific materials.
Along with new contents, the Museum also has a new look. Oulu Museum gets a new logo, a unique color scheme, and a distinctive typography. The visual renewal was created by the design firm Good Kombo in cooperation with the Museum’s project team and the Museum and Science Centre’s communications and marketing team.
The Oulu: Stories exhibition describes the city in many voices
The Oulu: Stories exhibition ignites an interest in history through emotions. Multi-voiced stories will awaken empathy and invite you to identify with people of the past. The exhibition aims to make us understand how similar people were in different eras and how present choices will affect the future.
At the exhibition, a shipwreck found in the Hahtiperä Harbor takes visitors back to a time when Oulu had under one thousand residents and began to grow through international trade. The clatter from the Åström tannery leads visitors into both lit and dark alleys where worldwide upheaval, urban development, and everyday life intertwine together with the beloved miniature model of Oulu. By the end of the exhibition, the building blocks of Oulu’s identity are revealed, all the way from air guitars to mayonnaise on pizza. It all is connected by the Oulujoki River that divides the exhibition space – multifaceted history is steeped in its flowing currents.
The exhibition’s themes came about through open workshops with citizens. The perspectives arise from the level of everyday life and normal people – the level from which people have looked at the city’s development and changes in the world. A professional sparring group consisting of history researchers and cultural operators helped in clarifying the exhibition. The design firm Good Kombo participated in implementing the exhibition.
Willingness to highlight untold stories and alternative perspectives came up at the workshops. For example, this can be seen in the Punished and Innocent exhibition by Katariina Parhi and Vesa Ranta that will be open for a year from the Museum’s opening.
Children’s Museum – City Pathways
Tiima will also include a museum for children where visitors can dive into history through play. The City Pathways opening exhibition takes visitors on a trip through the city. Its locations, sceneries, and situations can be familiar to children of different times. There is always something to do and try at the Children’s Museum – you are allowed to touch almost everything!
An outdoor playground called Adventure Factory will be built by the Museum and Science Centre Tiima. It was inspired by the tannery that used to be located in Myllytulli. Now everyone can dive deep into the machinery of the tannery.
Children’s Museum and Adventure Factory will both be free-of-charge and accessible to children of all ages.