Working as the director of a library in a scholarly society, cultural memory organisation and research institute like the Finnish Literature Society is both interesting from the perspective of library science and rewarding in terms of research. I have been able, in a unique way, to deepen my understanding of the focal areas of the Library of the Finnish Literature Society. These focal areas are cultural studies, such as folkloristics, ethnology, cultural anthropology, religious studies and ethnomusicology. The library holds and acquires unique international collections of research literature in these fields.

The aim of research into the spiritual and intellectual culture of human communities is the understanding of human activity. Investigating questions of identity, multiculturalism, environmental questions, the present and the future from the various perspectives of cultural studies increases both understanding of our own culture and intercultural understanding. Oral and literary culture, ways of life and traditions of nations or ethnic groups, oral history, folk culture and art, everyday life, locality and sustainable culture are among the focuses of cultural studies.

In addition, the paradigm shifts and ruptures in systems of thought that have influenced science and the humanities in different periods are also interesting to me. Today, it is fascinating to follow how ecological thinking is affecting both human sciences and the humanities and the world of art and its scholarly research.

There have been, and still are, artists and art collectors in my family. I am personally interested in modern art and paint watercolours, preferably outdoors. Art and science are similar in certain respects: both study matters from near and from a distance, aim to discover the new and demand creativity and open-mindedness. As a researcher curating exhibitions on the history of science, one of the most interesting exhibitions that I have seen was La Mente di Leonardo. Nel Labaratorio del Genio Universale, which ran at the Uffizi Gallery in 2007. In the exhibition, Leonardo da Vinci’s thoughts, machines and constructions and his literary and artistic works were displayed in a masterly fashion. Da Vinci prized art more highly than science, because studying nature and the natural world provides space for emotion and subjective perspectives and interpretations, which da Vinci felt gave additional value to the enterprise.

The largest historical exhibition which I have curated is Terra Cognita, which dealt with changes in world view throughout history. The exhibition was arranged as a large-scale historical exhibition in connection with Helsinki’s being a European Capital of Culture in 2000.

The exhibition had two main themes. One depicted changes in European and Eurocentric worldviews and the other described how Western (i.e., America) and Northern areas (the Nordic countries and arctic regions) gradually became known in Europe.

Terra Cognita, the known world, expanded area by area.

It has been a great help to me to have in-depth knowledge of the collections of rare books in the National Library and consequently of the descriptions of those ‘new regions’ where indigenous people and the ‘new lands’ and cultures were portrayed to Europeans from the 16th century onwards.

• Additional information on the Terra Cognita exhibition (in Finnish)