Men in the museum: Elderly men from Southwest Finland and Estonia work together to develop new kinds of cultural services

Art and culture have a positive impact on well-being and health. The project, coordinated by Turku University of Applied Sciences, explores what kind of museum services could inspire elderly men. The project is based on information on the scarcity of cultural services targeted at the elderly.

The significance of the project, launched in August, is strongly linked to the promotion of social well-being, cultural accessibility, community spirit and inclusion. At the same time, new ways of serving different customer groups interested in culture are being created.

Turku University of Applied Sciences and the University of Tartu are now developing museum services that would better meet the needs of older men. The partners are Naantali Museum and Mynämäki Museum, as well as the National Museum (Eesti Rahva Muuseum) and the Agricultural Museum (Eesti Põllumajandusmuuseum) in Tartu, Estonia.

– The programme often lacks topics that speak to this particular target group. In any case, men typically visit museums less than women. On the other hand, the aim is to develop the services so that they could better take into account any target group in a user-oriented manner, says Marju Lindholm from Turku University of Applied Sciences, who is responsible for the project.

The development work is carried out together not only with Finnish and Estonian museums, but also with local user panels consisting of elderly men. The juries, which will be launched at the end of the year, have largely been formed on the basis of an earlier project.

– The task of the juries is to come up with ideas for new kinds of museum products that attract more elderly men to visit museums. The participants develop the services in a direction that is more interesting to them, Lindholm explains.

The piloting utilises the principles of co-design. As a final product of the project, six new services intended for museums will be modelled.

The CoMe Stronger – Elderly men go to the museum project is funded by the European Union’s Central Baltic Programme and runs until the end of January 2026. The project is managed  by Turku University of Applied Sciences’ Social Inclusion and Active Citizenship research group.

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