Tale or interpretation?

The children's fairy tales quoted in the text are harvested from the four story crafting Sundays organised in October. The children's drawings and tales are on show in the Rear window during November. You can order the services of creative story telling guides on 1733 8509, weekdays 9am – 12am

When the museum produces texts to accompany works of art – catalogue texts, room texts, wall texts – they are usually written by professional specialists. When it comes to commenting on art, what the ordinary museum visitor has to say is rarely heard, and even more rarely seen in print. Kiasma has broken up the traditional museum-guide arrangement and introduced, for example, the 'contact guides'. The contact guides do not just take groups around, but place themselves instead beside the museum visitor as a viewing or conversation partner.

We usually read children fairy tales written by adults. When the child itself tells a tale, it can be very different.
We form our concept of what constitutes a 'proper' fairy tale on the basis of stories written by adults. In the museum world, unwritten rules dictate who the authorities are when it comes to speaking about art. From their texts we form a concept of what authentic 'art talk' should be like.

Children often have no say in matters relating to them; even in the day care centre it's the adults who are talking. Creative story telling is something which has been used to alter this relationship. The child narrates and the adult listens and writes down the child's narration. Creative story telling has been used for a couple of decades and has shown us how, for example, day-care approaches or teaching/learning can indeed be founded on listening to children.

Liisa Karlsson, who recently completed her Doctor's thesis on children's own stories, has now trained the Kiasma guides in this art. Creative story telling is linked to the metaphorical and narrative nature of Olli Lyytikäinen's art. As with the day care centres, now the arrangements in museum rooms have for once been turned upside down: the guides listen. So what does the child want to say in the museum, what is the child's experience? It isn't necessarily a tale with a plot, nor one that follows the pattern of Aristotelian drama, nor is it always even one about artworks – just as exciting might be the ride in the lift or the view from the window of an upper storey. An adult has learned to see nothing beyond the frame whereas the child may see more comprehensively, thus without categorising in the same way as us.

Creative story telling has been perceived to have an influence on the development of children's self-esteem. 'Doctor of Fairy Tales' Karlsson writes: “The idea of creative story telling is based on the idea that everybody has thoughts, information and tales which no-one else has. Every person's thoughts are valuable and worth listening to. The person writing down the fairy tale does not ask questions, or demand further explanations, or suggest improvements. The narrator's own tale is fine just as it is, in the way he or she presents it.”

The adult museum-going public values the 'official' interpretation of art: on guided tours the listeners often expect the guide to explain what the artwork is about. But a work of art is not a riddle, with only one correct solution. The meaning of a work of art is not ready-made and complete somewhere, waiting for someone to find it; most importantly, the meaning is not the same for everybody. The meaning is a process, it takes shape and changes according to time and place, for every viewer separately. Information coming from outside may help and give more depth, but in the end how a work of art is experienced depends on individual interpretation. The viewer can of course share his experience and find connections with and differences from the interpretations of others.

The contact guides hear the enjoyable and sometimes touching interpretations of visitors. But how to get the viewers' experiences one step further, on view in the museum alongside the 'official' text? The results of creative story telling can be seen on the touch screens and net pages of the Lyytikäinen exhibition. This time the voice is that primarily of children, mainly because they are more ready to take on this sovereign role. Few adults dare to start telling a fairy tale, that is, to narrate something – Heaven forbid! – entirely their own.

Perhaps even adults would be encouraged to give their own interpretations, if the interpretations of others too were visible in the museum. The real issue is probably this – whose meanings and interpretations are valued, whose voice is heard, who talks in the museum?

And that's the end of the tale.

Kaija Kaitavuori

The person with four hands throws a rock. They throw it on top of a little person, but the person gets out from under the rock quickly. The end.
-Ville, 4 years old.

This is about, where people can't go, but diggers go.
-Vertti, 3 years old.

AUTUMN COLOURS
The sun was shining. It's hot.
It's autumn. The leaves are different colours.
The colours are bright.
Brightnesses can be different colours.
-Valpuri, 6 years old.

The bird dream
A bird knocked at the window. Nothing. The dream ended. It was a crow.
Doris, 2 years 6 months

The fish that was different
That fish has come from some other country and it's quite different. Those others have come to look at it. They're coming to see what it's like, if it's good or evil. Then they notice that yes it is really good. So they make it one of their friends.
-Juuso, 10 years old

The two-eyed boy
The two-eyed boy sat on top of the hill with an ox, eating tuna fish. Then the wind blew the tuna fish into the sea. The boy's name was Olli. Then he went home to sleep. In the night he had a nightmare about a war in the Near-East. Suddenly his dream moved to Egypt. On top of a pyramid sat a man with no clothes on. He was reading Donald Duck. Then Olli woke up again and noticed that it was morning. In the morning Olli went to fetch the post. On the way he noticed a skull. Suddenly he noticed three men following him. They were ugly. When Olli got home, the three ugly men were sitting round the table playing chess and drinking wine. Olli wondered how they had got in but he didn't really care. Then Olli went into the living room to watch television. Then he noticed it was King Kong on the television. He changed channels and saw Matilda. The old witch was eating a hare. Suddenly an owl appeared on the television. Then Olli turned the television off and went to his room to write a letter to his dear friend Krista. In it he told how he had fished in the summer for perch and flounder. Then Olli went to the sauna, when he had finished writing the letter. After that Olli drank a cup of cocoa. Then he went to bed to read his Goofy paperback and fell asleep.
-Katja, 11 years old and Krista, 12 years old