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Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 5
Introduction: kitchen materiality and
kitchen practices in museums
During the past decades, a renewed interest in
material culture has been evident in European
ethnology, with a focus on human behaviours
and relationships with the material world1. Along
with the shift of focus on everyday practices, the
kitchen has gained prominence as a topic of anal-
ysis. Today, it is increasingly interpreted not just
as a physical place, but as a space where domestic
practices constitute complex “kitchen ecologies”,
in which constellations of things, sensations, and
skills mutually entangle (Pink 2012, 48–53). Sim-
ilarly, it has been analysed as an orchestrating
concept, focusing on the symbiotic relationships
and “ecology of goods” within the home (Hand &
Shove 2004, 235–237).
ese ideas resonate with recent developments
in museology, where new approaches to material
culture have transformed understandings of mu-
seum objects, highlighting the dynamics of prac-
tices related to t hem. Museological attention has
shifted to the ways in which things may take on
specifi c meanings and values (Macdonald 2006,
6; Karlskov Skyggebjerg 2016, 6‒9). ey are
conceptualised not only as carriers of meanings
or targets of interpretation, but also as objects
of experience.
e object is once more at the heart of the mu-
seum, this time as a material focus of experience
and opportunity, a subtle and nuanced, construct-
Kitchen as a Material and Lived Space:
Representations and Interpretations in Estonian
Museums
Ester Bardone & Anu Kannike
ABSTRACT
Kitchen has been one of the most intensively lived spaces at home, yet its furnishings have often vanished,
especially in the 20th–21st centuries. e complex materiality of the kitchen related to multiple practices go-
ing beyond food production and consumption has rarely attracted curatorial interest in museums. is article
presents a comparative analysis of four recent exhibitions in Estonia focusing on the kitchen space against the
background of contemporary material culture theory and museum studies. We examine how kitchens were
interpreted and represented, asking if and to what extent were the expositions based on ethnographic inquiry
and how the stories of and practices associated with things were communicated to the audiences. Concurrent
kitchen expositions and kitchens as parts of museum displays enable a novel methodological approach for
studying the (re)presentation and interpretation of similar material objects. Besides reconstructing authentic
milieus, the museums succeeded – to diff erent extent and using diff erent means – in conveying sensory and
emotional experiences. In all cases, the social life of things was evoked, either by shedding light on the general
and typical of particular periods, or by emphasising the individual choices and subjective experiences through
the biographical approach. Altogether the exhibitions gave an unprecedented cumulative eff ect, outlining the
unique memories of Estonian kitchens and the challenges and dilemmas of contemporary consumer society.
https://doi.org/10.23991/ef.v44i0.59702
6 • Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44
ed, shifting thing, but also physical, ever-present,
beating pulse of potential. (Dudley 2012, 3.)
It is argued that in today’s world objects at ex-
hibitions obtain relevance as they not only con-
vey one particular meaning, but are polysemantic
and, for the visitors, are associated with several
aspects of their life-worlds, and are open to vari-
ous interpretations (Hahn 2016, 17).
However, as a rule, the kitchen is still displayed
in the traditional manner in folk museums or
home museums as part of historical resconstruc-
tions of domestic life. Exhibitions dedicated to
the modern transformations of kitchen2 are few
and only some museums specialise entirely on
kitchen history3. In Estonian museumscape, the
kitchen and kitchen life have also been in a mar-
ginal position for a long time.
In the 1980s–1990s, the kitchen was studied
in the context of home cultures and consumption,
looking at how people appropriate their living en-
vironments by obtaining and rearranging objects,
decoration, and renovation (Miller 1988; Gulles-
tad 1992). With the phenomenological interest in
experience, researchers’ attention turned to how
people bring things and surroundings to life and
let them happen. Orvar Löfgren has emphasised
the predicament of studying people’s experience
of everyday materiality as it is dominated by un-
refl ected routines and practices: “this knowledge
of mastering things, of navigating between the
shelves in the kitchen or the local supermarket
(…)” is hard to put in words as it belongs “to the
category Jonas Frykman (1990) has called ‘what
people do but seldom say’” (Löfgren 1997, 104).
Similarly, Daniel Miller has argued that what peo-
ple do with objects is signifi cant and, consequently,
the criterion of mattering emerges largely through
ethnographic enquiry (Miller 1998, 15-19).
More recently, Shove et al. have demonstrated
how the development of kitchen technologies has
facilitated traditional practices connected with
cooking or dishwashing, but also induced new
practices like a healthier diet, making cooking
more enjoyable, and spending more time with
others (2007, 34). As practices transform over
time, familiar tools or infrastructures are put to
diff erent use or the social signifi cance of the prac-
tice is redefi ned. What people take to be normal
is immensely malleable (Shove 2003, 199). us,
kitchen materiality is reinterpreted according to
the changing ideas about food habits, design or
cleanliness.
is article presents a comparative analysis
of four recent exhibitions in Estonia, focusing
on the kitchen space against the background of
contemporary material culture theory and mu-
seum studies. We examine how kitchen materi-
ality and kitchen practices were interpreted and
represented, and ask in what ways the museums
were able to suggest novel approaches to kitch-
ens and kitchen culture, relying on contemporary
approaches in these disciplines. In our study we
look at whether and to what extent the exposi-
tions were based on ethnographic inquiry and
how the stories of and practices associated with
things were communicated to the audiences.
Another major aspect to be studied in this con-
text is the kitchen as a space of memory. is is-
sue is closely related to the biographical approach
to things in Anglo-American tradition, which fo-
cused on particular articulations between persons
and objects (Kopytoff 1998; Appadurai 1998),
as well as on how the meanings of things change
over time as they are circulated through diff erent
social contexts (Tilley 2001, 264). Pierre Nora’s
concept of lieux de mémoire (Nora 1997) has been
used to describe how remembering and recollect-
ing takes place in the kitchen as a site of memo-
ry. Angela Meah and Peter Jackson focus on the
materiality of kitchenscapes ‒ both actual and
remembered ‒ and how these carry meanings for
those who inhabit them. ey call the kitchen a
kind of “private living museum”, a place in which
objects of personal, artistic or cultural interest are
curated, stored, and displayed to construct and
reproduce family histories. rough particular ob-
jects, practices, multisensory memories, and indi-
vidual remembrances “kitchen can become both a
repository for and a carrier of memory – physical,
symbolic and embodied” (Meah & Jackson 2016,
4-5, 17). In our analysis we will also tackle this
question, asking how diff erent museums were
able to cope with the challenge of re-creating the
private sphere of the domestic kitchen – a lived
site of remembering – in the context in which the
original actors and activities were no longer pre-
Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 7
sent. How do such reconstructions contribute to
the understanding of memory work?
In the context of studying everyday practices,
the sensory aspects of interacting with material
environments have been highlighted. Relying
on empirical research on housework and home
decoration, Sarah Pink writes about how such
practices entail a constant recreation of the sen-
sory environment (Pink 2004). Similarly, the em-
bodied forms of knowledge and sensory experi-
ences are gaining more prominence in museums.
Sandra Dudley emphasises that “embodied and
emotional engagements with objects” should be
a “fundamental building block of twenty-fi rst-
century museum visit” (Dudley 2012, 11), while
David Howes claims that “perhaps the most sa-
lient trend in the new museology has been the re-
habilitation of touch” (Howes 2014, 259). In ev-
eryday life kitchen is a place where we experience
a variety of textures, sounds, smells, and tastes.
us, our enquiry also concerns the sensory en-
vironment at the kitchen exhibitions – whether
and how eff ectively it was created, whether it en-
abled to produce a more active and participatory
relationship with the museum (cf. Bennett 2006,
277; Gregory & Witcomb 2007). is is of interest
both in the context of contemporary museologi-
cal theory and practical perspectives of Estonian
museumscape facing increasing competition in
the fi eld of edutainment.
Firstly, we will give a brief overview of the his-
tory of the Estonian kitchen and describe our re-
search object and methods. Secondly, we tackle
the curatorial concepts and challenges, and then
proceed to analyse the outcome – how kitchen
materialities and practices were presented to the
audiences. Finally, we focus on specifi c groups of
objects, examining in a comparative manner how
similar things have been (re)presented and inter-
preted. is enables a closer scrutiny of museums’
approaches to kitchen materialities.
A brief history of kitchen in Estonia
In Estonian peasant culture, the kitchen as a sepa-
rate room primarily dedicated to cooking is a rather
late phenomenon, which started to emerge in the
late 19th century. For a long time, “living kitchen”
remained a multifunctional space where house-
hold work was done and, on everyday occasions,
guests were received (Saron 2010; Pärdi 2012). In
the countryside, the big old multifunctional liv-
ing room with a kitchen corner remained a reality
for much of the pre-war era (cf. Lindqvist 2009,
170). By the fi rst decades of the 20th century, ide-
as about modern domestic economy, including the
rational kitchen, were familiar among the higher
and middle classes. rough a network of women’s
societies, the press, and courses, the principles of
practical, hygienic, and healthy home environ-
ment, largely following the Scandinavian example,
were spread. However, in everyday practice a new
mentality took root slowly and new requirements
for kitchen furniture “were probably followed only
in some model or training farms or domestic econ-
omy schools” (Saron 2010, 24). By the late 1930s,
many new city fl ats in Estonia had already modern
fi tted kitchens, sometimes with home appliances
like electric cookers or refrigerators.
During the war and the post-war years, peo-
ple’s primary concern was survival; thus ever yday
materiality was “conserved” for a long time. In
numerous homes, especially in the villages, the
19th-century milieu was preserved even until
the 1960s. In city suburbs, bedsitters (kööktu-
ba) were also common. At the same time in the
Western world kitchens in modern fl ats with
open spaces underwent a drastic change, in which
“leisure, beauty, and sociability fi gure alongside
themes of functional effi ciency” (Hand & Shove
2004, 244). Estonian women had to struggle
for the provision of basics, but in the western
rationalised and modern kitchen the main aim
of the housewife was to provide a pleasant and
cosy environment for her husband and children
(Spechtenhauser 2006, 45). While the kitchen
of the 1930s was a demarcated workstation for
the intelligent housewife, the open kitchen of
the 1950s was integrated into the family space
of the home (Saarikangas 2006). In the new So-
viet industrially constructed houses from the
late 1950s, the tiny kitchen was separated from
the living area and marginalised, because people
were either supposed to eat in canteens or warm
up canned food (cf. Reid 2010). Yet, in Estonia
8 • Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44
home cooking remained important despite the
cramped conditions. e kitchen also preserved
its function as a social space where the family
gathered and friends popped in for a chat.
Due to the limited choice of prefabricated
furniture, Estonian kitchens looked quite simi-
lar until the 1990s, although often people built
furniture and decorated their domestic spaces
themselves to add some individuality. e tran-
sition to market economy brought about a kitch-
en renovation boom, domestic technologies be-
came a normality. e new Western trends and
lifestyles transformed the meaning of the kitch-
en space – not only convenient for cooking, but
also a cosy place of leisure and pleasure. With the
kitchen opening into the living room, Estonians
have recreated the traditional multifunctional
kitchen. Despite high design standards, kitchen
is still often characterised as the “heart of the
home” (Kannike 2002, 131).
Museum contexts and research
methods
Until recently there have been no temporary or
permanent exhibitions related to the topic of
kitchens in Estonian museums, although kitch-
ens are organic parts of several farm-museums4,
the farm complexes of the Estonian Open Air Mu-
seum as well as the 19th-century citizen’s muse-
ums in Tartu and Rakvere, and home museums of
prominent people (e.g. the museums of the Esto-
nian writers Vilde and Tammsaare in Tallinn and
Kreutzwald in Võru).
e museums we selected for our study can be
divided into two groups: museums that display
kitchens as part of their permanent exhibition
and special exhibitions about kitchen history
or cooking.5 e majority of the cases represent
20th-century modern kitchens – both rural and
urban – but there are likewise some examples
from the late 19th century and the present time.
ese new exhibitions off ered great potential
due to the increasing popularity of the topic of
food and cooking among museum visitors from
all generations, but also due to a novel approach:
for the fi rst time attention focused on the modern
kitchen. Yet, the curators had to face several chal-
lenges, because most of the necessary furniture,
appliances or everyday items were not available
in the museums’ collections. Unlike living rooms,
kitchens have rarely been documented (except for
cooking corners of barn-dwellings) or collected,
Museum Title of the exhibition Curators Themes Time
Hiiumaa Museum
(HM)
The Kitchen Kauri Kiivramees,
Helgi Põllo
Domestic kitchen interiors from
the 1930s to the 1990s
September 2015 -
December 2016
Estonian Applied
Arts and Design
Museum (EAADM)
The Kitchen.
Changing Space,
Design and Applied
Arts in Estonia
Kai Lobjakas Design of kitchen space, furni-
ture and design from the 1930s
to the 2000s
February-May 2016
Estonian National
Museum (ENM)
We Cook Pille Runnel
Agnes Aljas
Home cooking / professional
cooking from the 19th to the
21st century
since October 2016
Estonian Open-Air
Museum (EOAM)
(a) Härjapea farm
(b) Setu and Peipsi
Russian farm com-
plexes
(c) Kuie school-
house
Maret Tamjärv,
Juta Saron, Elvi
Nassar, Merike
Lang, Dagmar Ingi
(a) reconstruction of a historical
farm kitchen from the 1930s;
(b) historical copies of farm
kitchens from eastern and south-
eastern Estonia from the 19th
century to the 1960s;
(c) kitchen of a 19th-century
schoolhouse transferred to the
museum.
(a) since May 2007
(b) since May 2015
(c) since September
2000
Table 1. Kitchen exhibitions and kitchen displays studied.
Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 9
and so the respective pieces are few and not al-
ways representative. When renovating kitchens,
people have often thrown away the old furniture
or stored it in a shed or summer house. us, the
materiality of kitchens has often “vanished”. Pho-
tographs of kitchens and people in them as well
as of everyday food are also rare in Estonian mu-
seum archives as they have not been considered
important enough to be documented. In some
cases, people do not want to share their photo-
graphs because they feel their kitchens or cook-
ing ways are too ordinary or not up to standard,
i.e., not clean or modern enough.6
In Estonian museums changes in kitchen cul-
ture have not deserved much attention for sev-
eral reasons. In pre-World War II ethnology and
museology, the main interest focused on peas-
ant culture and elements of the traditional way
of life that had been preserved. is approach
largely continued in the Soviet period. In some
articles about living conditions and food culture
in the countryside (Peterson 1964; 1966; Karu
1964; Võti 1962; 1966) kitchens were briefl y men-
tioned, but 20th-century furniture and cooking
largely remained beyond the interest of Soviet
ethnography. In the early 21st century, some as-
pects of Soviet everyday life were examined by
ethnologists and design historians, which result-
ed in a few exhibitions7 and publications dealing
with food culture and domestic material culture
(e.g. Piiri 2006; Kannike 2005). erefore, the
way kitchens are conceptualised at the new ex-
hibitions studied in this article marks a turning
point in many respects.
e idea to establish the EOAM, based on
Scandinavian examples, was fi rst proposed in
1913, but the museum opened to the public
only in 1964. It is distinguishable from all other
museums, being a large complex (72 ha) of his-
torical buildings (74 buildings from the past 200
years). It is located in the territory of the former
Baltic German summer estate Rocca al Mare, in
the coastal area of Tallinn. e authentic houses
or their trustworthy copies have historically re-
liable interiors. Like in other open air museums
worldwide, the overall atmosphere is that of a
separate world of the past, into which the visi-
tor enters gradually by walking along the “vil-
lage streets” and in farmyards. Four kitchens are
in regular use and open all year round. Härjapea
and Kuie houses are originals transferred to the
museum. Setu and Peipsi-Russian complexes are
recently built copies: the former built according
to original plans and photographs and the latter
following the general building style of the region.
Hiiumaa Museum is the leading cultural and
heritage institution on the second biggest island
of Estonia. e museum is known for its innova-
tive role in the Estonian museum landscape, and
has initiated several major cultural events like the
Kärdla Café Days and active involvement of the
public. Long before experience economy became
fashionable, the museum organised thematic
events dedicated to specifi c eras, social groups
or holidays, in which visitors could play certain
roles and sense the past through touch, smell, and
taste. e main building of the museum is located
in the longest wooden house in Kärdla, built in
the 1830s–1840s for the administration of the
broadcloth factory. Today the renovated house
welcomes the visitor with a cosy atmosphere into
which the 19th- and early 20th-century interiors
and objects blend naturally.
e ENM was founded already in 1909, but
the fi rst house specially built for the museum
with a novel permanent exhibition opened only
on October 1st, 2016. e main emphasis in the
collection work and exhibitions has been on Es-
tonian everyday life from the 19th century until
the present day, and also on Finno-Ugric cultures.
e focus of the new permanent exhibition is on
presenting the heterogeneity and diversity of lo-
cal culture. e new permanent exhibition off ers
visitors varied sensory experiences through mul-
timedia devices, interactive databases, and vari-
ous material objects. During the past decade, the
museum has actively used participatory methods
for staging new exhibitions and examining topics
of contemporary society to give voice, besides ex-
perts, to the groups studied, striving for the con-
tent to be personal and empathic to individual
experiences (Runnel & Järv 2011; Aljas, Kurg,
Rattus & Karro-Kalberg 2016).
e majority of the EAADM’s collections are
made up of unique artistic objects. During the past
15 years, the museum has extended its focus on
10 • Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44
design history. Although most exhibitions have
been classical displays of professional art, some
of them have also touched upon everyday life, for
example, an overview of the hugely popular inte-
rior decoration journal of the Soviet period, Kunst
ja Kodu (‘Art and Home’) in 2009. e kitchen ex-
hibition of 2016 in many respects broadened the
traditional approach of the museum.
Compared to the fi rst examples, the architec-
ture of the EAADM and the ENM provides a dif-
ferent, more sterile, and more “academic” context
to the exhibitions. e former museum is located
in a 17th-century storehouse in Tallinn old city
centre. e interior spaces have high ceilings and
massive white walls creating a solid, yet at the
same time visually neutral atmosphere for varied
displays. e novel house of the ENM – a massive
concrete building surrounded by glass block ramps
– is the most contemporary and largest museum
space in Estonia and also in the Baltic States.8 In
the permanent exhibition hall multiple thematic
displays are located next to each other, which em-
phasises the dialogue between eras and cultures.
To collect materials for our study, we repeat-
edly visited museum exhibitions and events from
March until November 2016, and conducted in-
terviews with curators and other members of
the museum personnel, who had been involved
in designing the exhibition. e interviews were
carried out in respective museum kitchens and
exhibition halls. e interview questions were
related to the museum and the exhibition, to
the kitchen and food culture. In the interviews,
the curators refl ected on their initial visions, the
methods of communicating and realising their
ideas, and the feedback from visitors. Addition-
ally, we used secondary materials on the muse-
ums’ websites and on Facebook. In some cases,
articles or books published by museum research-
ers provided valuable supplementary informa-
tion. We also participated in some of the events
organised during the exhibitions.9
Curatorial concepts and challenges
Although the general topic and titles of the exhi-
bitions studied are quite similar, in each case the
specifi c focus of the display was diff erent. It de-
pended on the museum’s profi le and goals, previ-
ous research, and programmes as well as resources
(collections, budget, workforce, space).
e exhibition titled “Kitchen” ([KØØK]) at
the HM aimed to explore a topical issue that
would be attractive to a wide audience. Over the
past few years Hiiumaa has gained popularity as
culinary destination and interest in the island’s
food heritage is active. e curators regarded the
kitchen not only as a room for cooking, but as
the key space of domestic everyday life, the mul-
tifunctional “heart of the home” or “symbol of
domestic life” (KK). e curators’ idea was “not
a historical copy, but rather a memory of a period
kitchen (our emphasis – authors) with its objects
and character” (HP). eir primary aim was to
enable people to enter the interiors, feel the at-
mosphere of a certain era, and examine the ob-
jects closely through all senses. Another aim was
to draw attention to the changes in the forms or
meanings of everyday objects with the same func-
tion (e.g. cookers, shopping bags, etc.) and trans-
formations in daily practices, such as cooking or
washing. In this way, people would be encouraged
to refl ect on the contrasts and continuities in the
familiar environment over the years.
To personalise the interiors and eras and as-
sociate the material with the history of Hiiumaa,
curators relied on interviews and created gener-
alised portraits of housewives. e latter were
performed by the museum staff at some museum
events and their stories were posted on Facebook
to advertise the exhibition. To emphasise home-
liness, it was decided not to display exhibition
texts in the traditional manner, but “hide” them
into interior details. As the museum’s repositories
are limited and food culture has been a marginal
topic for research until now, kitchen furniture and
items are few. Most objects had to be collected
or borrowed specially for the exhibition, using
second-hand shops, the press, and social media.
Public reaction to the appeals made by the mu-
seum was not very active, so most of the objects
were found through personal networks. Since the
museum personnel is small, it is impossible to
change temporary exhibitions often. is impo-
ses restrictions on the construction and structure
Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 11
of the displays that must be suitable for diff erent
activities and events. Staged kitchens with tem-
porarily added seasonal details provided a fl exible
environment for a variety of educational and en-
tertaining programmes. Visitors could come and
look at cooking demonstrations and participate
in a playful manner.
Although at the EAADM the main axis of the
exhibition “Kitchen. Changing Space, Design and
Applied Art in Estonia” was the modernisation of
the Estonian kitchen from the architectural and
artistic viewpoint, starting from the 1930s un-
til today, the curator wanted to shed light on the
wider social and everyday context of these devel-
opments. By choosing a topic that was presumed
to be of interest to diff erent segments of visitors,
the aim of the exhibition team was to attract the
part of the public that usually would not come to
an art museum. Accordingly, new types of sources
from other museums and archives as well as pri-
vate collections were used (everyday objects, post-
ers, photographs, TV-shows) to off er insights into
non-professional home decoration, food culture,
and technological developments. Compared with
the biographical approach in Hiiumaa, here more
attention was paid to the historical accuracy of all
objects. e educational aspect was a priority in the
concept of the exhibition. e accompanying texts
gave information about the ideology of kitchen de-
sign through decades, emphasising the role of ar-
chitects and designers. e curator and designers
decided not to opt for full-scale reconstructions of
the kitchens, but preferred to put on display parts
of furniture and give impressions of the histori-
cal spaces using large photographs and drawings.
e preparation process for the exhibition re-
vealed that even some most typical pieces of Esto-
nian 20th-century kitchen furniture were missing
from the museums. is concerned not only pre-
war objects, but also Soviet-period interiors that
had been replaced as soon as it became possible
in the 1990s. is wave of remodelling kitchens
refl ected radical changes in the routines and as-
pirations related to domestic life. As Shove et al.
have pinpointed, “people modify and replace in
an attempt to synchronise or manage gaps be-
tween existing possessions and visions of future
performance“ (Shove et al. 2007, 15).
An important criterion in the selection of the
items to be displayed was their aesthetic attrac-
tiveness and cleanliness. e curator decided not
to display a unique pre-World War II kitchen chair,
because it needed restoration: “I would have liked
to show it, but it would have frightened the visi-
tors with its condition“ (KL). According to the cu-
rator, the visitors also expect the exhibited items
to be beautiful.
e exhibition titled “We cook” at the ENM
does not focus directly on kitchens, but mainly
on diverse aspects of cooking. It also puts the aes-
thetic aspects of food culture into the spotlight,
although from a somewhat diff erent angle, com-
bining artistic and ethnographic approaches. For
the visitor, the composition of objects similarly
off ers a visually enjoyable impression with a com-
bination of colours, forms, and contrasts. e idea
of the display is to draw attention to signifi cant
details of food culture through non-traditional
forms of display. For instance, dishes, ladles or
knives are not organised into historically authen-
tic groups on tables or in showcases, but mounted
in rows on huge inclined walls. In this way, the
exhibition underlines the trend that aesthetic as-
pects are increasingly important in today’s food
culture. People take pride in the home kitchens
not only because of their eff ectiveness, but also
because of their design.
“We cook” is not attempting to give a histori-
cal overview of Estonian cuisine, but rather raise
issues and questions for further examination.
One of the curators, Pille Runnel, stressed that
she did not consider herself a food historian and
the curatorial concept relied on her background
in museology, communication, and consump-
tion research. Although opened as a part of the
new permanent exhibition, the curators empha-
sised the temporary character of this display and
expressed hope that it will be followed by other
exhibitions, exploring aspects of food culture in
depth. e purpose of the exhibition is to empha-
sise the importance of food in everyday culture
and shed light on diff erent processes associated
with it from both professional and domestic view-
points. Another aim is to test diff erent methods
of documentation and museological presenta-
tion. e curators’ voices do not dominate; they
12 • Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44
are like conductors who have tried to combine
the voices of professional chefs, fi lm directors,
photographic and video artists as well as nutri-
tionists. e main topics and conceptual ideas are
presented to the visitors not directly, but rather
through hints or new viewpoints. e curators
wanted the objects to give rise to diff erent con-
versations and interpretations, and the criterion
of historical representativity was not decisive in
the choice of objects.
At the EOAM kitchens are an integral part of
the permanent exhibition of farmhouses from
diff erent Estonian regions, dating from the 19th
century until the early Soviet period. All of them
have been furnished on the basis of the muse-
um collections and fi eldwork data. e museum
has a long tradition of organising major events
during folk calendar festivals. e museum per-
sonnel and caretakers of the farms often enact
diff erent roles, using living history techniques.
e kitchens are given an important role in the
interaction with the visitors. Härjapea farm in-
troduces the everyday environment and activi-
ties in the Estonian village in the 1930s. e
kitchen furniture is historically accurate and
the oven and stove were rebuilt with the idea of
using them regularly in museum programmes.
Similarly, Kuie schoolhouse with a kitchen serves
as the major educational centre of the museum
(Lang 2005, 67-68). e Setu farm and Russian
Old Believer’s House were built with the pros-
pect of being fully “working” complexes. In the
former, there are two kitchens – one from the
late 19th-early 20th century and the other from
the 1950s-1960s, which for the fi rst time en-
ables the museum to include the Soviet period
into educational programmes. Both farms house
the museum’s Centre of Multinational Estonia,
which organises thematic days, workshops, and
fairs, in which cooking and food occupies an im-
portant position.
While previously the emphasis was more on
the demonstrations of farmwork and crafts, in
recent years the museum has organised various
activities connected with food: food days and
fairs, workshops and demonstrations. is illus-
trates a wider trend in museum communication
since 1980s, in which the ability of food to reveal
cultural practices and interpersonal connections
has been given more prominence (Moon 2015).
Kitchens within museumscapes
e general trend that contemporary museums
do not aim to reconstruct the past in full detail or
judge contradictory events or phenomena, is also
refl ected in the changing role of material objects
and material environments. e examination of
the exhibited kitchens enables us to pinpoint how
the curators have implemented their ideas and
strategies by making use of the museum space.
e diverse materiality of museum spaces under
study sets the general frame for interpreting the
kitchen exhibitions or kitchen interiors within.
At the EOAM, the borders of the kitchen ex-
positions are blurred as they are parts of full ar-
chitectural complexes. e caretakers do not sit
in the corners of the rooms, but are engaged in
daily duties, leaving an impression of ongoing life
just like on a regular farm. e kitchens contrib-
ute to the overall aim that, at the farms, the visi-
tor should get the impression that “the host or
hostess has just arrived home and comes to talk
to us“ (Lang 2005, 69).
e fact that the explanatory texts are outside
of the kitchens, not on the walls or next to ob-
jects, also contributes to the feeling of a “living”
kitchen. e visitors can walk into the interiors,
look and sometimes hear the sounds, and smell
the aromas of cooking, although they are not sup-
posed to touch the objects. e practices connect-
ed with the kitchen are extended to other parts of
the dwellings, for example, making cottage cheese
or baking bread, gardening or goat tending. e
EOAM has had to fi nd a balance between using
authentic collection objects and those usable in
participatory programmes.
In Härjapea farmhouse all the interiors have
been furnished exactly like they were in the
1930s. Although not everything was preserved,
local villagers described all the objects in detail
to the ethnologists. e kitchenware originates
from this period, but the curators and caretak-
ers continue to look for the original items in an-
tique shops. “If we go there, we keep an eye open
Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 13
for such things. Working in a museum is a way
of life.” (BS) Here the material environment of a
well-to-do farm of the era gets a wider context
through an additional photo-and-text exhibition
in the granary, titled “A dream of a modern farm
in 1918-1939”, which introduces the ideals and
reality in Estonian homes before World War II.
is part of the exposition is related to the exhi-
bition at the EAADM, complementing the latter’s
“ideal landscape” with facts and comments about
real-life practice. ere are “food Sundays” with
cooking demonstrations, using mostly seasonal
products. Although visitors show a keen interest
in participatory activities, the farm kitchen is too
small and there are no sewer pipes, so people just
watch and taste the food. In Kuie schoolhouse
the kitchen is rather small and plain, but the at-
tractive elements are jars and cans on the shelves
containing herbal teas, grain coff ee or St John’s
bread, which are unfamiliar to most visitors and
arouse curiosity. Here it is the smells that main-
ly create the homely atmosphere. e caretaker
dries apples and herbs for tea, makes juice and
jam, and during special events some food dem-
onstrations are scheduled. For example, on St Mi-
chael’s Day visitors can see sausage making and
rutabaga baking, and on the Estonian Bread Day
special bread dishes have been made.
In the Peipsi Russian farm there are fewer mu-
seum items than in other houses; still, if possi-
ble, original objects are used. Every weekend the
“housewife” prepares oven dishes, makes pies,
biscuits, Old Believers’ “cooked sugar”, and sam-
ovar tea. e Setu farm kitchen is unique for its
regional ceramics and kitchenware dating from
the 19th century, and Soviet-period kitchen fur-
niture from the Khrushchev’s aw era that is a
rarity and cannot be seen in any other Estonian
museum. In the second, “new” kitchen, Setu
dishes, for example, curd with cumin seeds, cold
soup or gingerbread with greaves are prepared on
weekends and for special events. Since the rooms
are fi lled with nice aromas, visitors often believe
that people actually live in the house. All in all,
the kitchens of the EOAM have a role in creating
a complete atmosphere of living history, in which
the specifi c details or practices of a particular era
are emphasised.
e kitchen exhibition at the HM presents
most realistic and most lived-like walk-in kitch-
en interiors. e visitor can fi rst look through
the window into a 1930s kitchen, and after that
enter the post-war era, starting from the 1950s–
1960s kitchen, walking through the 1970s–1980s
kitchen, and ending up in the 1990s kitchen. All
interiors are created with ethnographic accuracy
and are full of signifi cant objects of the respec-
tive periods. Extra attention is paid to the mate-
rial of fl oor and wall covers as well as lighting.
e fact that all kitchen interiors are situated
close to each other and are separated with tem-
porary partitions creates the possibility for no-
ticing similarities and diff erences in the furni-
ture, technologies, cooking utensils, and other
objects used in the household. Furthermore, it
generates a representation of the kitchen as a
space connecting diff erent generations or diff er-
ent rooms of someone’s home. Here the visitors’
contact with the material space is intimate since
they can open the doors and drawers, touch all
the objects on display, and even rearrange them
within one kitchen. Although the sensory aspects
of the museum experience were considered very
important, not all the ideas could be realised; for
instance, sounds and smells proved to be techni-
cally too diffi cult (although in the 1970s–1980s
kitchen people could smell spices from small jars).
In this exhibition space the texts are merged with
the elements of the interior – into a wall calen-
dar, newspaper or recipe collection. us the visi-
tors are encouraged to look into the details of the
”home“ they have entered and the curators’ voice
remains discrete.
e other two kitchen exhibitions are diff er-
ent in the organisation of space and design, and
a clear distance is created between the visitor and
the showcases or exposition surfaces. In both cas-
es the compositions of kitchen/cooking objects
are visually attractive and can be perceived as in-
tegral artistic installations.
At the EAADM, the central place in the exhi-
bition room was given to unique design objects
(tableware, kitchenware) introducing the style
of prominent artists. e ideas and ideals of the
kitchen and their historical development show-
cased in plans and drawings by architects, kitch-
14 • Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44
en design examples from the magazines, etc., are
in the foreground, whereas the lived materiality
of the kitchens is implicit. Immediately after en-
tering the exhibition hall the visitor faces a niche
with a photograph from the 1930s ideal modern
kitchen in white colours and a typical plywood
kitchen chair of the period. e same technique
is used throughout the exhibition design – medi-
ated materiality combined with real objects. is
is partly also due to practical reasons – the miss-
ing parts of the furniture are fi lled with drawings.
e accompanying text gives an overview of the
social and political reasons behind the modernisa-
tion of Estonian domestic kitchens starting from
the 1920s. e main emphasis is on architects and
home economy literature ideals rather than on par-
ticular lived kitchens of the period. e exhibition
displays the changing forms of kitchen objects, in-
cluding examples of both industrial and artistic de-
sign. Visually, the central position is given to a huge
white horizontal space covered with colourful de-
signer kitchenware and cooking utensils from the
1930s until the 1990s. e everyday materiality
of the kitchens was brought to the exhibition hall
via a participatory initiative – the visitors were en-
couraged to bring to the museum photographs of
their own (former) kitchens which were displayed
on a separate wall at the end of the exhibition hall.
e response to this action was not very active,
but about a dozen people who reacted were quite
enthusiastic, sending several pictures. e result
was an interesting mix of designer kitchens, DIY
interiors and typical Soviet-time spaces.
e space of the exhibition “We cook” at the
ENM is limited to one relatively large rectangular
room with a high ceiling and neutral white walls.
e exhibits are placed on white slopes on an open
wooden framework, which clearly separates the
objects from their original context (unlike at the
EOAM and the HM where they blended in with
the interior). Similarly to the EAADM, the con-
cept of “table” is central in the design of the ENM
Figure 1. A view into the exhibition space at the Estonian Applied Arts and Design Museum exhibition
“Kitchen. Changing Space, Design and Applied Art in Estonia”. Photograph: Paul Kuimet.
Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 15
kitchen exhibition, although the approach is dif-
ferent. Here the underlying concept of multivo-
cality has resulted in a more variegated pattern.
Whereas at the EAADM the “table” was “laid” in
the classical style, at the ENM several styles of
display are mixed. As a result, the dichotomy of
the traditional/domestic and the professional/
institutional becomes visible. e space is also
structured into two parts according to the con-
tent: one of them deals with professional and
the other with domestic aspects and objects of
cooking. e lived materiality of the kitchen is
brought to the exhibition hall via the mediation
of AV-screens that not just complement objects
but form independent exhibits, add dynamics,
and evoke unexpected dialogues with three-di-
mensional material exhibits. Videos recorded for
the exhibition show cooking as a process, demon-
strating restaurant or home kitchens in which the
chefs or home cooks follow their usual routines.
While men appear as chefs, the theme of the do-
mestic kitchen is presented through women and
this might lead the visitor to contemplate the
gender issues. Liina Siib’s photographic exhibit
“Women in the kitchen” documents Estonian
women cooking everyday dishes in their kitchens.
During the fi rst months after opening the exhibit
was ironically positioned in a backward corner of
the room evoking ironical associations with the
artist’s previous exhibition “Women take little
space”10, whereas later enlarged photos were set
on the walls thereby creating more equal dynam-
ics between domestic and professional cooking.
Objects in and around kitchens
Concurrent kitchen expositions and kitchens as
parts of museum displays enable a comparative
examination of how similar material objects have
been (re)presented and interpreted. We chose
some parts of the kitchen – pantries, cupboards,
Figure 2. A view into the exhibition “We cook” at the Estonian National Museum.
Photograph: Karin Leivategija
16 • Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44
and cabinets – and some sets of objects for a clos-
er scrutiny of museums’ approaches to kitchen
materialities. us, the exhibitions highlight the
hidden social life of several objects, their ”adven-
tures“ in and outside of kitchens, their life cycles
and ”afterlives“.
Traditionally, in Estonian homes there has
been an important “extension” of the kitchen
– the pantry – nowadays often replaced by the
refrigerator and cabinetry (cf. Seiberling Pond
2007). Two pantries can be seen in the exhibi-
tions studied: one at the HM and another at the
Härjapea farm at the EOAM. Whereas the kitchen
reconstructions provide a snapshot from a certain
decade, a look into the pantry can reveal a more
long-term accumulation of domestic materiality.
Usually it was not only a temporary food storage,
but gradually became a cross-section of diff erent
eras displaying layers of objects – a repository of
family history (cf. Meah and Jackson 2016). e
pantry of the EOAM is a reconstruction of a stor-
age space in an exemplary farm from the 1930s.
Even more than the kitchen itself, it highlights
the fact that the family was quite wealthy and
the housewife had graduated from a home eco-
nomics school. On the nicely decorated shelves
bottles, bowls, and jugs of the era are carefully
divided into groups according to function, as
the guidelines of the period required. e farm
products and rows of preserves bear witness of
the diligence of the housewife. e other pantry
displays some continuity (e.g. the style of jam
jar rows is very similar), but here the material-
ity is more casually organised and the pattern of
things also hints at the Soviet-time peculiarities
of consumption and concerns of domestic econ-
omy. For example, there are jars of instant coff ee
(in short supply in the 1980s) next to home ap-
pliances (a small oven, a table fan), which have
been put away “just in case”. Rubber boots may
create associations with everyday routine work
in the rural household.
Figure 3. Pantries at the exhibition “Kitchen” at the Hiiumaa Museum (left) and in Härjapea Farm
at the Estonian Open Air Museum (right). Photographs: Ester Bardone.
Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 17
Like pantries, kitchen cupboards and cabinets
are also partly hidden spaces where food and uten-
sils are kept, but what also accumulate other ev-
eryday objects and preserve specifi c smells. ere
are many parallels in the processes of collecting
and displaying these items at diff erent exhibitions.
At the HM, the 1950s–1960s kitchen cupboard
was found in the house of a colleague. e 1980s
mass-produced kitchen cupboard was obtained
from a house on sale – it was full of kitchenware
and even the drawers had preserved their origi-
nal content and smells. e visitors were allowed
to open the drawers to see a familiar messy mix-
ture of bottle caps, plastic bags, wires, old manu-
als, etc. ese drawers from the actual lived kitch-
en eloquently display the “throwntogetherness”
(Massey 2005, 140‒142) encountered in every-
day storage places that shelter not just things but
also memories related to them (cf. Löfgren 2016).
e kitchen cupboard in Härjapea Farm at
the EOAM is interesting because it represents a
built-in model that was propagated in the 1930s.
It was reconstructed at the museum, relying on
the marks on the ceiling and detailed accounts
of neighbours. In this manner, the kitchen space
tells the story of the era and the owners. Similarly,
the kitchen at the Setu farm was built, relying on
fi eldwork materials from Setumaa district as well
as the curator’s own childhood memories from
the region. us, both kitchen reconstructions
are based on biographical narratives about the
kitchen space, objects, and practices (cf. Miller
1998; Hoskins 2006). e cupboards in the living
room and kitchen of the Setu farm, dating from
the 1950s–1960s, are originals specially collected
for the exposition. e kitchen sideboard was es-
pecially diffi cult to get as it had already become
a rarity. It is now full of kitchenware, but also
other things that were used in the household of
that era, such as oil for the kerosene lamp. e
drawers are full of cutlery and other necessary
cooking utensils.
At the EAADM finding kitchen cupboards
typical of Estonian homes from the 1930s to the
1980s proved to be surprisingly diffi cult. ere-
fore, the 1930s cupboard was displayed as a pho-
tograph, and the 1960s kitchen was represented
by a well-preserved fragment the curator was
happy to have obtained from an old lady. e new
trend presenting the kitchen as a status symbol
and place of socialisation was marked by a mobile
high-tech design kitchen island.
Besides the reconstructed sections of kitchen
materiality like pantries, cupboards, and design-
er objects referring to kitchen practices, there
are assemblages of kitchen objects that are not
displayed in their context, but united into new
compositions at the exhibitions to raise issues of
remembering, and entanglement of human biog-
raphies with biographies of things.
e ENM exhibition is built upon contrasts and
surprises. One of the most impressive sections of
“We cook” is a white wall full of cups, saucers, and
plates mostly from the 1960s-1970s, some also
from earlier or later periods. is symmetrical and
visually appealing display is at fi rst sight similar
to the central “table” full of designerware covered
as if for a big party at the EAADM, where it em-
phasises a sort of ideal “kitchen landscape”. At the
ENM, if the visitor does not read the text, the ex-
hibit may be perceived just as an overview of Soviet
mass-produced objects. But the curator’s text, the
personal and even touching essay about her own
grandmother, titled Grandma’s kitchenware, makes
the visitor realise that the objects speak about re-
membering and forgetting. ey are vehicles of
memory, illuminating the biographical perspec-
tive of kitchenware (cf. Sutton & Hernandez 2007;
Meah & Jackson 2016). is collection was the only
thing that was left of grandmother’s big household.
For the children and grandchildren (but also visi-
tors with similar experience) they evoke memo-
ries about how grandmother cooked, how the food
smelled and tasted, how the recipes changed over
time, and how the family met at birthdays or on
ordinary summer mornings.
“Looking at the dinner plate, homemade cut-
lets and fresh potatoes come to mind, making
your mouth water. e resulting associations with
smells and tastes set off the „mental cinema“ of
memory […] Disappearance of the utensils used
for preparing the food has a symbolic signifi cance
– as they disappear, memories of grandmother’s
cooking also fade. Knowledge related to cooking
in the sense of a manual activity is vanishing.”
(curator’s text at the exhibition)
18 • Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44
Whereas at the EAADM the design of kitchen
objects is highlighted by detailed information
about each item (author, title, date), valuing its
uniqueness, the cups and plates at the ENM are
displayed without this specifi c data. e curator
explains it: “Biographical objects are authentic
rather by what they evoke than by what they are.
e value of the object is embedded in its story“
(PR). Actually this is the fi rst time an Estonian
museum has collected a full collection of a fam-
ily’s tableware. Here a certain parallel arises with
the objects displayed at the HM, some of which
also get additional layers of meaning through the
stories of “housewives” – how the things were
obtained and what role they played within the
consumption culture of the era and of a particu-
lar family. Whereas in Hiiumaa the exposition
aimed towards a realistic reconstruction, the
ENM opted for an aesthetic assemblage of trivial
objects. Without reading the curator’s text, this
composition would be just an anonymous deco-
rative composition.
Two collections of mundane objects – kitchen
tins and ladles – also reveal diff erent ways of col-
lecting and displaying everyday materiality in the
museum context. At the EAADM a set of kitchen
tins belonging to a private collection and dating
from the 1920s until the 1980s was displayed in a
separate smaller room on the upper fl oor of the ex-
hibition, creating an independent single-themed
space. is part of the exhibition explains the
longer history of kitchen tin production in Esto-
nia, especially their diff erent designs. Some sets of
tins – for instance red tins with white polka dots
(a design idea from the Western pop-culture of the
period) produced by factory Norma and originat-
ing from the 1960s – have become iconic symbols
of kitchen life for several generations. e text of
the exhibit states: “ ere are multiple recollections
related to them – how the tins were a kind of cur-
rency and exchange goods, they were valued as a
present and as a bribe.” However, according to the
overall curatorial concept, the stories of tin own-
ers are not displayed and perhaps the collector
was not even interested in them. Only a few tins
reveal their actual use - there are handwritten pa-
per labels stuck to them with the names of ingredi-
ents diff erent from what is originally printed (e.g.
“black currant“ on the jar named “fl our”), which
shows that people have applied their own every-
day creativity to industrially designed objects. As
such, the tins are an interesting example of the
domestication of mass-produced objects into the
particular “kitchen ecology“.
e ENM has displayed a set of ladles from
the museum’s collection, providing comments on
the museum collection policies. Numerous ladles
have been collected without information about
their owners or use, and despite their abundance
they have not been exhibited, since they have
not been considered valuable from the artistic or
functional viewpoint. In contrast to anonymous
ladles from the collection, some were collected
specifi cally for the exhibition, attributed charac-
ter (“beautiful ladle”, “bad ladle”), and exhibited
with the owners’ stories about their use. Most la-
dle “biographies” are about contemporary plastic
items, telling a variety of stories about the social
life of things in contemporary society. For in-
stance, a person recollects how she used a white
ladle during a hiking trip to Bulgaria in 2005 and
later on it served in her kitchen:
“At that time, a white ladle made its way into my
backpack ‒ it was fi rst used to serve tea or coff ee
from the cauldron in the mornings and evenings;
after that, everyone also received a ladleful or two
of food (porridge in the morning, rice or pasta in
the evening). After the trip, I used it at home, but
soon it obtained an ugly brown colour from blue-
berry kissel, and I always cast rather weary gl ances
at it, although I kept on using it. You cannot just
throw away a wholly intact thing, even if it looks
permanently dirty.” (text at the exhibition)
In contrast to the contemporary story, visitors
can watch an ethnographic fi lm from 1934, “ e
dance of wedding cooks”, showing the cooks from
Ruhnu Island dancing with ladles - central objects
in the ceremony, thus contrasting active practices
with their “sleep” on the museum shelves.
To sum up, the pantries and cupboards at
museums work not only as elements for recon-
structing authentic milieus, but they also convey
sensory and emotional experiences. e assem-
blages of dishes, kitchen tins, and ladles can be
perceived as compositions of aesthetic objects,
but they may also evoke nostalgia or curiosity
Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 19
through their familiar visual forms and personal
narratives told to the visitor. By the example of
these sets of objects at exhibitions the museums
demonstrated that ordinary tableware or cooking
tools become valuable “because they have been
removed from the stream of commodities and
have acquired an almost totemic personal and
family history”, passed down from one generation
to the next. is way they may become vehicles
of (shared) memories that help to tell stories of
people’s lives (cf. Sutton and Hernandez 2007).
Conclusions
e kitchen exhibitions at four Estonian muse-
ums in 2015‒2016 presented a unique opportu-
nity to examine interpretations and representa-
tions of everyday materiality in a comparative
manner. Such a comparative analysis allows us to
argue that these exhibitions refl ected a shift in
approaches to material culture and everyday prac-
tices inspired by new theoretical developments
in museum studies. e main ideas expressed at
the exhibitions were related to biographical and
narrative approach, objects that evoke memories.
e very materiality of kitchen objects proved to
be continuously relevant after the digital turn,
for both actions and interactions, for evoking
multiple practices related to kithen ecology, al-
though the sensory and participatory potential
was not fully used.
Kitchens were interpreted as lived spaces in
which objects, ideas, and practices are inter-
twined and revealed through ethnographic inqui-
ry – personal stories or collective narratives of the
period. Changes in historical milieus were clearly
marked, but, unlike museum representations fol-
lowing the reconstructive principle, the dynamics
of kitchens was shown through changes both in
object forms and practices. At all the exhibitions,
the social life of things was evoked, although
through diff erent angles. While the EAADM and
the EOAM aimed towards shedding light on the
general and typical, the HM and the ENM paid
more attention to the individual choices and sub-
jective experiences through the biographical ap-
proach. e latter enabled the museums to acti-
vate visitors’ interest through nostalgia and thus
objects became anchors or stimulators of remem-
bering. At the EAADM the perspective of usage
remained more implicit in contrast with the de-
sign practices, yet mass-produced design objects
clearly activated personal memories. At the HM
the practices were highlighted through personal
stories of the “housewives”, but also by similar
objects carrying out the same function at diff er-
ent points in time.
It became evident that the kitchen as a top-
ic was especially well suited to test new ways of
representing a specifi c lived space at museums. In
order to mediate the sensory aspects of kitchen
materiality, demonstrations of practices or par-
ticipatory activities were used. is was most
explicit in the case of living history apporoach at
the EOAM, where the recreation of historical do-
mestic spaces supported cooking or other events,
and omnipresent hostesses added to the feel-
ing of homeliness. At the HM organic kithchen-
scapes of various eras were created and the inter-
active visitor experience was encouraged, which
enabled sensing and feeling the materiality in a
very intimate manner. e ENM made it possible
for the visitor to take a closer look at and listen
to the sounds of the contemporary profession-
al and domestic cooking, eating, and shopping
through videos and photographs. e exhibition
“We cook” also made a step towards representing
the kitchen as a contested space, in which power
relations are negotiated not just in terms of gen-
der but also in terms of tradition and innovation,
professional and everyday cooking. Although the
kitchen as a topic for museum exhibitions enables
to highlight multiple sensory aspects of material
culture, all the kitchen exhibitions also exposed
their limits in off ering the visitors sensory expe-
riences due to the particular museum buildings
and restrictions on touching, cooking or eating
imposed by the exhibition spaces. Furthermore,
it was likewise expressed in interviews with the
museum personnel that off ering the visitor spe-
cial programmes and multisensory experiences
puts considerable pressure on the curators and
caretakers, and therefore may not be sustainable
in a longer perspective or requires additional per-
sonnel and funding.
20 • Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44
Museum theoreticians have argued for a diver-
sity of interpretations and involvement of the au-
diences at diff erent stages of museum work: col-
lecting, exhibiting, and interpreting. ereby, the
museum becomes a space “not just for dialogue be-
tween the museum and its audiences, but rather
a space for discussions and interactions” (Runnel
and Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt 2014, 12–15). Con-
sidering the museums studied, exhibiting lived
kitchens required great eff ort from the curators.
In all the cases, they could not rely on the existing
collections, but special participatory actions were
used to borrow or collect objects or sets of objects
and stories of things or people using these things
for the exhibitions. However, it was not possible
to keep all the items exhibited in the collections
due to space constraints and in the case of the HM
and the EAADM a large part of the exhibits were
returned to the original owners after the end of
the exhibitions. In the future, involvement of the
public (including donators of the objects) into the
process of interpretation could be more active.
While each of the exhibitions had a clear pro-
fi le, altogether they gave a cumulative eff ect, out-
lining the unique (and exceptional, compared to
Western Europe) history of Estonian kitchens
and the challenges and dilemmas of contempo-
rary consumer society as refl ected in and through
domestic materiality. Except the EOAM, all the
other kitchen exhibitions were one-time proj-
ects. Although all of them enjoyed great success
among the visitors, this has raised more general
issues concerning the collecting and exhibiting of
modern material culture originating in 20th cen-
tury everyday life. Lack of storage space, exces-
sive collections in some areas and major gaps in
others call for a closer coordination of collection
policies and exhibition strategies.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Estonian Re-
search Council grant IUT34-32 “Cultural herit-
age as a socio-cultural resource and contested
fi eld” and the European Union through the Eu-
ropean Regional Development Fund grant 2014–
2020.4.01.16-0049 “Competitive research in the
academic fi elds of responsibility of the Estonian
National Museum”.
NOTES
1 The reputation of material culture as an object of study
refl ects shifts in research paradigms of the discipline,
although national traditions have varied here due to
epistemological as well as socio-political reasons. In
Scandinavian ethnology material culture studies were
revived in the 1980s, within the study of consump-
tion as a culture-making process related to identity
formation often using a semiotic framework of analysis
(Löfgren 2012, 172).
2 For example, the exhibition “Counter Space. Design +
the Modern Kitchen“ at the Museum of Modern Art in
New York in 2010–2011: https://www.moma.org/in-
teractives/exhibitions/2010/counter_space. Accessed:
05.10.2017.
3 For example, the World of Kitchen in Hannover: http://
www.wok-museum.de/. Accessed: 05.10.2017.
4 For example, the Seto Farm Museum, the Mihkli Farm
Museum in Saaremaa, and the C.R. Jakobson’s Farm
Museum in Pärnu County.
5 The Estonian National Museum and the Estonian Mu-
seum of Applied Arts and Design are state museums,
and the Estonian Open Air Museum and the Hiiumaa
Museum work as state foundations.
In the following text abbreviations are used as follows:
EOAM = Estonian Open-Air Museum, ENM = Estonian
National Museum, HM = Hiiumaa Museum, EAADM=
Estonian Applied Arts and Design Museum.
6 For example, in a documentation project at the Hiiumaa
Museum schoolchildren were asked to take photographs
of cooking at their home. In most cases the results were
carefully “staged” with the cooks wearing plastic gloves
and impeccably clean aprons.
7 The exhbitions “Things in my life“ at the Estonian
National Museum and the Estonian Applied Art and
Design Museum in 2000–2001, and “We eat and
drink. Food culture in Soviet Estonia“ at the Estonian
National Museum and the Estonian Applied Arts and
Design Museum in 2006.
8 Designed by international architectural bureau Dorell.
Ghotmeh.Tane, the 34,000 m² museum is the largest
in the Baltic States, with the total exhibition area of
6,136 m².
Ethnologia Fennica vol. 44 • 21
9 Museum Night at the EAADM in 2016; the Bread Day
at the EOAM in 2015.
10 This created an association with the artist’s former
photographic exhibition from 2012, titled “Women take
little space”, which depicted Estonian women working
in small spaces, ironically illustrating the chauvinist
claim that women can be paid less than men because
their needs are smaller. Liina Siib. “Women take little
space”. See: http://liinasiib.com/women-take-little-
space/ Accessed: 05.10.2017.
SOURCES
Source material
HP = Interview with Helgi Põllo at the Hiiumaa Museum,
May 19, 2016.
KK = Interview with Kauri Kiivramees at the Hiiumaa
Museum, May 20, 2016.
MT, DI, BS = Interview with Maret Tamjärv, Dagmar Ingi,
and Birgit Salumäe at the Estonian Open-Air Museum,
June 28, 2016.
EN = Interview with Elvi Nassar at the Estonian Open-Air
Museum, August 25, 2016.
KL = Interview with Kai Lobjakas at the Estonian Applied
Arts and Design Museum, August 26, 2016.
PR = Interview with Pille Runnel at the Estonian National
Museum, September 16, 2016.
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KEYWORDS
Curatorial practice, exhibition, kitchen, material culture, museum studies, representation
