Exhibition archive

The exhibition on the various roles of animals in seafaring is especially intended for children.

At least up until the mid-20th century, almost every ship had a pet, most commonly a cat or a dog. The pets were important to the sailors, because you could show your affection to the animals, and they provided company on the long voyages. The animals also had duties on board: cats caught rats, and dogs kept watch at port.

Animals were also brought as presents from far-away countries; monkeys and snakes were smuggled to Finland. Some animals, such as pigs, hen and sheep, were kept on board and slaughtered to provide fresh food for the sailors.

Many of the animals that travel on board nowadays are unwanted stowaways. Ships carry ballast water for example to stabilise the vessel, and some 5 thousand million tonnes of water is carried from one place to another each year. The ballast water contains thousands of individual plankton animals, which – being alien species – pose a serious threat to the environment. About half of the alien species in the Baltic Sea originate from the ballast waters of ships. The exhibition focuses on the alien species from the viewpoint of the research vessel Aranda.

In the exhibition, you can hear a parrot talk, see a giant rat and a water flea, and visit the cargo hold of a steam ship and the galley of a sailing vessel. There are also functional tasks for children. The topics of the exhibition are covered in children’s magazine Sieppo by the Nature League of Finland. The magazine in Finnish is available in the exhibition.

The exhibition is implemented together with the Finnish Museum of Natural History, to where the exhibition will move from Maritime Centre Vellamo.

Jacopo Brancati (born in 1966) is a professional photographer and journalist who has lived and worked in France since 1992. Exhibition “Winter Voyage to Finland” is the result of a patient, passionate work on the Finnish maritime world that Jacopo Brancati started over three years ago. Brancati focuses his attention on the work and the universe so particular of the maritime pilots, and on the navigation in the frozen sea.

The exhibition consists of sixty black and white photographs and develops through four steps. In the first three sections we follow the author’s exploration of different geographical areas: the Gulf of Finland, the Archipelago Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia. The fourth and last section, “Memories”, is a touching, respectful homage to the traditions and to the intimate world of Finnish seafaring people.

This awe-inspiring exhibition delves deep, revealing unseen landscapes hidden beneath the Archipelago Sea. The images offer a rare glimpse of a world into which countless boaters plunge their anchors in summer, but few have seen with their own eyes. The photographs were taken during the months from August-October in the years 2003–2006. Finland’s coastal waters are typically considered cold, murky and desolate. To the untrained diver the Finnish coast can all too often appear devoid of life, offering only overgrown algae and the most common fish

species seen on ice at any fish market. But the truth is that beneath the waves thrives a diverse ecosystem of hundreds of species of algae, invertebrates and fish, in which all of the major oceanic species groups are represented – sometimes in breathtaking shoals several thousands strong. The archipelago swarms with life and is one of our richest and most vibrant national landscapes.

For all its abundance, the Archipelago Sea is also mysterious. Regrettably, the sea only offers brief time periods when underwater visibility is good enough to capture its true nature and diverse landscapes on film.