Free to communicate?
The Free to communicate photography exhibition features the results of the contemporary collecting project carried out by the Postal Museum in collaboration with the Wärjäämo art workshop for disabled people. The photos and interviews depict Wärjäämö attendees’ everyday activities and their experiences in communication.
What are the alternative ways of communicating when the usual methods, such as speaking and writing, are not possible? What challenges and opportunities do the different communication methods present?
Contemporary collecting is a term used by museums for their efforts to preserve today’s phenomena and current events for future generations in their collections.
The joint documentation project by the Postal Museum and Wärjäämö was implemented as part of the contemporary collecting event on the theme of “Freedom” organised by the TAKO network on 16 September 2022. The Postal Museum’s theme was “freedom to communicate”. We spent a day documenting some of the activities at Wärjäämo, attending events such as the morning meeting, the digital workshop and the drama group’s rehearsal.
The TAKO network is a collaborative network of museums and collections that coordinates the division of museums’ recording duties across Finland and promotes a wide range of collection efforts.
Wärjäämö is the City of Tampere’s arts activity centre for disabled people.