 I'm Rebecca Zanander and I am the communications officer at NIMO. And it's really a true pleasure for me to introduce you to Kim O'Leary, who will explain how museums can promote democracy and why they must do so. And Kim O'Leary is not only the secretary general of the Finnish Museums Association, he is also a member of the NIMO executive board. And Kimo is also the managing director of the FMA creations, whose main product is the museum card. And if you don't know about it, it's a really great initiative that they have in Finland, where you get the museum card and you have access to pretty much every museum in Finland, if I'm not correct. So it's really great. And in his presentation, museums must promote democracy. What? Kimo will introduce us to Finland's brand new Museum Act. And the act clearly states that museums should promote democracy, which was never mentioned in any previous edition of the Museum Act. And Kimo will also let us know why it was important to make democracy a part of the mission of museums and how it should be reflected in practice. And I would like you to think of questions that you would like to ask Kimo after the presentation, because I will be back to moderate the Q&A. So if you write your questions in the chat now or later, I'll make sure to pass them on to Kimo. And without further ado, although you already see Kimo, I would like to welcome him to this online stage. Thank you, Rebecca, and thank you for your nice words. And first of all, I need to apologize that I don't have this nice post behind me that you sent me, because I have a terrible problem to fix it to my wall behind me. So the tape was not strong enough. But now, hopefully, that doesn't disturb you. Yes, we have heard a nice presentation so far, and we have already spoken about the team, what I have planned to discuss with you and present. So my title is Museum Must Promote Democracy. And I have a 35-minute time, and I have these six topics or seven topics. So first of all, I'd like to give my own opinion why should democracy be promoted. And secondly, I'd like to discuss if promoting democracy really is a museum task. And then I ask the question, if it is, do we have a problem or if it is not? Do we have a problem with that? And if we decide to promote democracy, how to do that? And which are museums opportunities to promote democracy? And yes, like Rebecca said, we have a new museum policy 2030 and new museum act 2020. And I will present it shortly, and a background for those quite new reports and quite new act or policies, policy and act. And the seventh part, the last part, I will give you some example from Finland and from other European countries how they have promote democracy. But first, I'm sure you know that there's plenty of definition of democracy. And I read quite many of those true when I make preparations for this presentation. And I think that in my mind, in my opinion, democracy is the reconcealing, selling of interest and allergies from the different directors, direct directions for true open debate choices and compromise. And I like to highlight those open debate choices and compromises. And like David says in his opening speech, all things what we are talking about, it is question of values. And the key values of democracy are equality, transparency and justice. And how to make then democracy, democracy work, the last bubble. I found that it's very, I like this definition that or saying that a functional democracy requires the opportunity for a balanced debate and confidence in the commitment of the parties to compromise read. So I think that these bubbles are quite good chain to think about what democracy is and what are values behind it. But why this topic? Why should we have a New Zealand conference, a topic with title is New Zealand must promote democracy, even though there's a question mark behind the question word and question mark behind it. I think there's several reasons, but I think that democracy is the foundation of social peace. And indeed I think that the most important achievement of democracy has been making social peace in EU area and in quite many other countries. And also it has kept, it has maintained also, how can I say, the normal peace or peace opposite to war. So there's quite long peace period in EU. And also this peace period and social peace period that we have had in Europe, it has guaranteed an increase in social welfare in many countries in Europe. So there's many reasons why democracy should be promoted, but why democracy must be promoted especially now. And it is so that democracy is in crisis now and there's several reasons behind that. The participation in social issues is decreasing in whole in Europe. And democratic system based on parties, but there is less commitment to political parties nowadays. Only 6% of things belongs to any political party. And if you think that that is quite low rate, it's not. If my sources are right, it is in Europe in general, only 3% of all Europeans belong to any political parties. So people don't want to influence things by working political parties. And it is also so that voting turnout is decreasing in every country. Parliament voting turnout in parliament election in Finland is about a little over 60%. And when we have EU election, it's much lesser. So it is actually so that people even know or it is very difficult people to choose what party they want to vote. And that's one reason why voting turnout is increasing. But it is also so that the means of implementing democracy have not kept pace with change. As I said before, only 6% of things are member in any parties, but still people want to influence things. They want to influence things. We are social media. They want to take part to one issue movement like Me Too and Black Lives Matter movement, for example. But the problem is that the democratic system hasn't found a good way to integrate these movements. Or one issue parties to our system or the democratic system. And that is a problem inside the democratic system. And we have seen all over the world that the expansion of the democratic system has stalled. And it seems that non-democratic systems to be the rise, especially in economic content. And that's the problem. And nowadays, if we think of the whole world, only less than 50% of people live in democracy in the whole world. And unfortunately, that rate is not increasing. So I'm sure that this is very familiar slide to you. And now we go to the main question. So is it a museum task to promote democracy? This definition you see now is a very well-known definition of what a museum is. And actually, it gives to museums quite a passive role. It says that a museum is in the service of society and its development. It doesn't say that we need to do something for the society or that we need to try to affect different things in societies. Yes, and the next one, some of you might also be familiar with this one. Not I give you a second to read it. So those who know that this is the ICOMS proposal for the new museum definition that they presented in General Assembly last year in Kyoto. And it gives more wider role for museums. And yes, it says that there is also word democratizing. And inside it, there's many those values that are behind functional democracy. Polyphonic spaces, dialogue, equal rights, transparent social justice, equality, and yes, well-being. And I'm sure most of you know that that was not accepted in Kyoto and we still have an official definition for the museum is the first one I showed you. So I think that we need to ask, do we have a problem here? And the answer is yes, we have and no we don't. We have a problem to promote democracy. If we want to promote, if we think that it is, we really need to promote democracy worldwide. I suggest that there is no the mission that includes word democracy won't succeed in international definition of museums. Because, like I said, less than 50% of all people in the world lives in democracy. And it is also a question of attitude. Democracy is nothing is not nothing to export or import. Democracy can posture only and democracy system can live on the system that system that share the common values. And yes, we have a problem if we think that mission role is what the what the official official definition is now nowadays. If we if we think that mission role is to be neutral objective holder of information about the past and only to be, like I said, in the service of society, its development without the right and the responsibility to have an opinion. And if we think that museums are only for cultural policy, then to promote democracy fits quite badly to your museum vision or mission. But we don't have a problem with promoting democracy if we believe. And I like to see that most of us things nowadays like this that museum have economic social education or social policy task and impact. And these these missions or objectives are also behind the Nemo's values and what Nemo does, like David William says said in his opening speech. And we can't be just passive organization and mission have to be active in fostering those impacts. So we are not only in preserving and exhibiting history, heritage or history also. Yes, and it is quite easy to write all sort of word democratic in museum visions in Europe, because most of them European countries are people in Europe lives in democracy. And if the mission take its mission to to to promote democracy, how to do it. Here's a good article from made by Elina Kiski-Kate, she was actually she is a researcher in Finland. She has made his doctoral thesis in actually she has made a doctoral thesis to research democracy and technology or the relationships between democracy and technology. And he she has written this article to Citra, Citra is the most biggest and most powerful think tank organization in Finland. Unfortunately, the article is only in Finnish and this is my own translation about it as article, but she's highlighted quite many things what should we do if we want to promote democracy. And here's four of those. We must build trust and active and be active civil dialogue in dialogue, have active dialogue. We must prevent equality, especially social and economic. We need reform the ways to participate. And we need to raise the level of education life of learning. And it is easy to see that museum have much to give in in in promote these things. And next one, next slide, few example and tips, what what we can do if we believe that our work is to promote democracy. Build trust and activate civil dialogue. Indeed, museum should place an emphasis on people and identity. Keep different groups of people and political parties voice. And that is quite difficult things at least I work for half a year in in in quite big museums last year. And we rent out rooms for different kind of groups. And then there was a group who I can say that it was quite racist group who wants to to have a room from our museums and and of course they want to send their voices from from the museum. And we debate what long should we rent out this conference room and that museum for that group and we decide that we did it. And it is or we decided that we don't. We don't and in democratic meaning it is it was not the good or best solution, because I think that democracy need open, open, open speeds and and and in that case we didn't give that possibilities to that crew. But yes, we need to become integrated into the leader of different communities, keep communities communities to opportunity to participate in defining the cultural heritage. So we need to take room also other other other groups to make content to our museums. We need to take initiative and participate in public debate acting as a forum for the board and open interactions and make content and competence mission, like I said openly available to help force the new ideas and create understanding and we got quite many good, good new ideas, from Karen from Karen presentation. Yes, and we need to prevent equal inequality, we need to have a social goals and programs, we need to provide possibilities for free admission, but it doesn't mean that all museums need to be for free and we need to take care of the economic value also like Karen says before. We need attract diverse audience that are representative of society at large. And one thing to do that or one thing to do that is to have a free admission for for some groups or who can't afford to buy normal ticket. And we need to remember that cultural heritage belong to all and everyone, and it is equally available to all but we need to ask to who's heritage we are preserving nowadays. And yes, we need to take object that that our aim is increasing social economic welfare. One problem, like I said before, is that people don't participate and discuss that much anymore through parties and then that's why we need to reform the way of participate. We need to make the museum a space for debate, and that doesn't happen in my museum when I worked in here, but I hope that most of the times it is so that museum keep space for debate. Yes, and we need to involve also, we just don't need to need to show different groups, history and culture, we need to take them with us to create the contact. And maybe this is the most one of the things that people have museum have done a long time. We are place for learning, we are we have raised the level of education, and we are place of learning, and it is key value also lifelong learning behind democracy. So we need to activate people to visit mission that they can learn. And we need to activate them. There's so much that they visit regularly, and like Rebecca said coffee in Finland, we all, for example, have this mission cut system and it helps people to visit museums, different museums regularly many times per year. Yes, some example. Now, now and under the rest of my presentation I look what has been done so far in Finland in some other parties. You might know that we are, we are, Finland is very proud about the history of our country's democracy, we have had it a long time and Finnish women were the first in Europe that came to vote in 1906. During the Second World War, they were only 11 function and democracies in the world, dominated by totalitarism and Finland one of those. And we, Mr Putin and Mr Trump visited our country in 2018, and we welcomed them to say them that yes, they came to the land of free press and it was very visible campaign, and it was also very important message for both of those presidents, but it was also very important to highlight that this is one of the key values in Finland. Yes, we have a, we have made a new museum policy and it is lost, lost launch in 2018 and it's named Museum of Opportunities and you can find it from web. Yes, I was a member in that working group who, who made this new policy and when we started to work with it, we, we define what is the operational environment, what, where we will live in coming 10 years. It is written that the greatest challenge for our time is finding means and creating structure for ecologically and economically sustainable growth in the welfare. The starting point for this new policy is that museums are not only for the cultural policy, it's for ecologically policy and economically policy and social policy of course. We defined our common values that all professional museums should share in Finland, and here they are, and yes, we highlighted this democracy. One, the fourth value is that museum are pluralism and are popular pluralism and democracy. And these are the key words that cultural heritage belongs to everyone. And we need to play an important part in supporting in developing a culturally diverse society with many different. And this policy, this don't start that museum just be, we need to be very active. And there's many key social impact objective for, for the museum, but I think that for the Democrats, for the demo, promote democratic, this is the six most important one. We will highlight socially important and current teams in operational expectations, build understanding, experiment with the search of new ways of participation, engagement, participating in cooperation, project and partnership. Work towards increasing social equality and become learning environments that support broad competence and lifelong learning. You can read those from the, you can read them from that policy. I see that I have only three minutes time, so I need to go further. And we will evaluate if we have succeeded to fulfill these objectives in this year, first time in this year. We haven't done it yet, but hopefully during the autumn. And yes, we have done already something. The first step I see with this goal is that we launch is a new museum act. And it's very modern act. And it gives for the museums or for the museum act three, four, four objectives. And the fourth one is where we haven't said it in Finland, we have said it very clearly, we need to promote democracy. So, a professional museum in Finland do not have any, any, any possibility to choose if or not they will promote it's written in our museum act. Some example from Finland. Maybe the means that the benchmark museum, if you want to do to benchmark mission that has very that social impacts are in the core of the mission, then you will then finish. Label mission will be, versus will be good. They are, they have mission to, to, to have impact in social, social, they have in their mission to, they need to impact social, social things and, and they are also part of, part of international social forum. Good example or good project also was that asylum museum probe that it was, it is not a museum, but when there's a refugee crisis, museum, 15 mission made a guidebook how to, how to create activities for asylum seekers. That publication is not, I'm not sure if it's in Finnish only. But good example is also that a democracy is very important for mission nowadays. This is not a Finnish museum, this is Switzerland's mission of communication that came, get the museum prize in 2019. And very good example about good project for the museum is this Swedish 100 years democracy. They celebrate 100 years democracy this year. They have this kind of, this kind of project that they give, they, they organize 100 discussions about the democracy in museums. They claiming, well, very well known, vision of philosophy has defined the democratic museum and all his museum where he has worked the social impacts has been very highlighted very, very much. Yes, there's also a mission of democracy in Sweden, in the United States. I haven't visited there, but introduction text says that it's quite traditional mission, but it maintains the purpose of the museum and it preserve democratic materials and democratic values for sure. And yes, when I questionize if the, if the, if the mission must promote democracy or do we have a tools to do that? It's quite obvious that we have, if you, if you read and write Google, if you search Google, write museum and democracy and, and museum and this kind of values behind democracy you have, you get millions of kids. It's obvious that the museum have, have and can play a real big role in promoting democracy. And the conclusion is that, yes, the mission must promote equality, transparency and justice. We need to, we need to promote those values. We need to participate in discussions. We need to provide space for the, we need to ensure economic and social accessibility, offer social programs, define measurable goals for them. And yes, democracy will follow. Thank you. Two minutes over. I'll start with one question. And then we had questions from the audience already. And we only have a bit of time. So now I'm very sorry, but we're going to take your break time, your precious break time to do a low Q&A. And then at 1130 Berlin time, we will continue the program. So we have about 12 minutes. And I'm wondering if you would have a sequence of participants who would like to start promoting democracy more but works in museum that is not backed up by a framework such as the museum act. Can you think of the first step to start implementing it? Yes, actually, unfortunately, hopefully, I don't know if you, if you share those slides to participate in this conference, but if you have a chance to read this David, Dave Fleming's article about democratic museum. For me, it says that actually, museum don't need to change much what they are. We are still for the collections. We are, we can have block past the exhibition and so on. So, but it is more or less questions and I think that is questions attitude more that we need to be active to do that. But actually, we don't need to change the basic things in museum and change the core values that come from preserving collections and so on. But it is more that how museums see themselves in society that we are for different impacts in societies for social, for economic and so on. It's more or less that change of attitude, not in actual work. I think that every museum, despite if they don't use the word democracy or have defined the values behind it, we work for the democracy. Yeah, thank you. I pick one of the questions that we got earlier when you were doing the presentation and then Sophie Faribike was asking how you kind of motivated that to tolerate by giving a platform to this kind of racist opinions. And then she asked how do you interpret this? Oh, sorry. Yeah. So how did, what was the reasoning about forgiving this platform? And you did. Yeah, we didn't give it. Well, it was a city museum and this group, I can say it was racist group. It was very loud. And also the city museum, the city directors of the city thought that it might cause problems that there will be huge demonstrating against museum against the city and it will collect groups that are against that racist group that there will be huge demonstration in that city. But the question is that this is also the part of democracy. But I don't know what's the solution, right? If we need to give voice for different group people and it is the basic value of democracy. So how can we do like we did. But it's also that I think that we must see the difference between give voice for the groups and museum voice. Because the museum also need to be active and it must have their own opinion. But still, if we are very active to promote our own opinion, then we change the way museums work quite much. But still, I think that when we need to be active, then we need to have a voice. But I think that in general we need to give space for different voices. We have an addition from Maria Vlahou who points out that democracy doesn't support racism. Not all opinions are tolerable and racism is not an opinion. But this question was all about that should we really tolerate everything because actually it's not part of democracy. Carlos also added, how do you decide what is the concept of democracy? After all, there are from the minimalist procedural like Schumpfeteris to the participatory directive. So there's a lot of comment. Actually, I tried to say during my first slide that yes, I read there's several definitions of democracy. And I have also made my dissertation in politics and I know that there is several. And actually, I just chose them what fits best for me. But it's not my own, of course, I pick up different words from different definitions. Do we have another question that anyone would like to type in or even ask directly with video? Otherwise, I had another question prepared. And maybe you already mentioned about also wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about how what the Finnish Missions Association's role in developing this Missions Act was that how involved were you for anyone who's not familiar with the Finnish bureaucracy? Yes, we had in both the process when saw that first we define and made social this is a mission policy 2030. And we had very large working group to do that. Finnish Museum Association one part of it. And there was also ministry and Finnish heritage agency and different museums. And after that, we have a working group to make new Missions Act and also Museum Association was a part of making that act. So we were very much involved to this process. And maybe that's why I think that we have very good Missions Act, but it took, there was a lot of good debates. It took quite much time, but I think that it was worth it. And comparing the museum act, our previous museum act that dates back 1919. It is easy to see how the society have changed, how the museum have changed, just comparing those acts. If we go back to 1990s, it would be in that time it was impossible to think that we should write in our act that the museum must promote democracy. It has sound quite old, but not anymore, I think. Well, that's good, I think. Oh, unfortunately not anymore. We have a question from Julia Pagel, who is asking, what implication does the new museum act have for the organizational structure of museums? Are museums more democratic in the organization itself? No, it hasn't changed the way museums are organized. And of course it has other changes. It has how the museum will be funded and what the museum, what museum, their aerial museum and original regional museum and nationally museum and that kind of things. But it hasn't changed how the museum work. But I'm sure that it has highlighted the work or social impacts in museum work, nearly every museum. But it is, so we can't measure that yet. And I think it's not wise that the museum have some kind of event, that this event is for democracy. I like to say that we just need to sell and promote those values which are behind democracy and democracy will follow like I said last slide. So it's more of a long-term change rather than a quick fix exhibition on the top. Yes, and of course in Finland we have a very strong democracy but we have still the same signals that our democracy is also in crisis in many ways. Definitely. I have a question from Daniel Friris and if there were any critiques to the museum act? And if so, where did they come from and how did you answer it? No, actually there hasn't been very much critiques against the museum act. Maybe the one reason is this process how we made it. So the museums could involve this process much and that's why the critic when it was launched in the beginning of this year there was no critic at all. But it's quite a new law, it's only valid in nearly nine months. But when it was launched, it's not a critic at all. Perfect. I think maybe we have to wrap it up now. I might take one more question because at 11.30 we have the next presentation happening on the main stage. And I'm very happy to see the discussions also happening in the chat function. And I'm wondering if you will keep being able to keep doing it. Otherwise in the next coffee break you could join the networking session and hopefully you'll connect with someone who you could continue this discussion with. So I will actually thank you so much Kimo for joining us from Finland. It was a real pleasure. And I hope that everyone who joined here will also stick around for the rest of the day and come back tomorrow for the workshops. Thank you Paul and see you online. Bye.