Teemu Kirjonen
Museum Manager, The Åbo Akademi University Foundation (https://stiftelsenabo.fi/en/home/)
Finland, Turku
Holding three master’s degrees from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, Teemu Kirjonen’s educational background is strongly in music and arts management as is his professional career. In 2023, he finished his basic studies of museology at the University of Turku and he has also reinforced his knowledge on leadership with courses at the Harvard Kennedy School. In 2003–22, he worked for the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in different positions, from 2014 onwards as its general manager. Since August 2022, Kirjonen has managed the three museums of the Åbo Akademi University Foundation – one of the biggest foundations in Finland – Sibelius Museum, Ett Hem and Casa Haartman. LinkedIn profile: Teemu Kirjonen | LinkedIn
“Navigating with the climate issues in different cultural fields” or equivalent
I was invited to give a presentation “Navigating with the climate issues in different cultural fields” at the NEMO European Museum Conference 2023 “and… ACTION! Museums in the climate crisis” in November 2023. When seeing this call for papers I thought that might an adaptation of that presentation be of your interest. I was launching an award winning climate project “The carbon-neutral Lahti Symphony Orchestra” already in 2015 when working as a general manager of the orchestra, and continued with the environmental themes also after moving to the museum sector in August 2022. The idea of the presentation was to raise ideas whether the same kind of elements that proved to be successful in the orchestra project could be applicable to the museums as well. The principal ideas of the presentation include strengthening the position of a cultural organization in the surrounding society with ‘non-cultural’ elements (without compromising on the artistic content), using a cultural organization in an innovative way to support the goals of the host organization and committing the personnel of the whole organization to the project already before launching it. When starting to manage the three museums of the Åbo Akademi University Foundation – Sibelius Museum (https://sibeliusmuseum.fi/en/), Museum Ett Hem (https://etthem.fi/en/) and Casa Haartman (https://www.casahaartman.fi/en/home/) – it was very natural for me to continue with the climate issues. All the three museums participated in a regional Climate Promise project with a project of our own, gaining for an EcoCompass certificate (https://ekokompassi.fi/briefly-in-english/) based on the international ISO 14001 standard. The EcoCompass certificate was given to our three museums in December 2023. I attach here a link to the referred presentation from last November (my part beginning at 36:00) and desired changes of the emphasis are naturally always possible. NEMO EMC 2023 | PANEL - Part of the Problem (youtube.com)
Participation, innovation, societal relevance, intersectoral, learning