An important element of any museum is a strong interface for people of all backgrounds and countries. So when I was assigned the task today of reviewing Espoo Museum of Modern Art's capacity to cater to English speakers through a kind of mystery shopping style of investigation I was intrigued.
I assumed the role of a clueless English speaking tourist, inspired by none other than myself. Since that is essentially what I am. With no Finnish to speak of I navigated the museum's online presence, as any prospective visitor would to before paying a visit. EMMA's website has a perfectly comprehensible version of their site in English. Then I perused their social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and their Instagram @emmamuseum. Due to the less formal nature of social media, the english translations were less common, but tourists wouldn't often be looking EMMA up on social media. It is geared more towards national and local Finns, not foreign Finns, like me. (hold the applause I'm aware of my comic genius). Then it was time to test out their service at EMMA itself. I was incredibly satisfied with the customer service available to me the moment I walked through the doors of Weegee house. At reception I asked where I could find the Modern Art museum within the complex. Given concise directions and a map of the building with English labels as well as Finnish. Within EMMA I am happy to report that I had virtually no difficulites roaming the museum and viewing the work. All of the staff spoke perfect English and every piece of information was totally understandable in my mother language. However one minor detail was that Interviews with Artists featured in the TOUCH exhibition were conducted through Finnish with no English version or version with English subtitles. If i wanted to learn more about a piece of work from the mouth of the artist themselves I would have to look elsewhere. So in the future I would suggest creating alternate versions of the videos that include subtitles so that English-speaking visitors may also have the opportunity view them. In all honesty, the service for English speakers in Espoo Museum of Modern art is nigh on impeccable. But that was the task I was given and I was happy to carry it out and learn more about the museum. It gave me a chance to scrutinise my placement and study the facility. I would consider EMMA to be one of the finest establishments in terms of language Fynn. MM
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