Fake snow, a sofa upholstered with plastic from the 1970, bar stools, a police snowmobile and a neon sign from a movie theatre - these are some of the artefacts needed in the compiling of the new special exhibition at the National Police Museum.
The special exhibition Police in Fiction to open on Friday 5 April 2013 shows how Finnish fiction, movies and TV productions have shaped citizens' ideas of the police and police work. The exhibition begins with derogatory poems of the early 19th century and ends in the diverse production of today.
"The special exhibition displays several police characters familiar to the Finns. The audience was able to impact the choice of characters, as citizens had the opportunity to vote for their favourites on Facebook. The exhibition focuses on fictional police characters and descriptions of police work, which is why private detectives in fiction, for example, were excluded from the material," explains Tiina Tuulasvaara-Kaleva , curator at the museum.
Real-life police officers, too, get their voice heard in the exhibition: the exhibition contains views by active policemen and women concerning fictional police characters and the images conveyed regarding police work. In addition, today's police officers and authors Marko Kilpi , Mikko Karppi and Pasi Lönn talk about how they have managed to combine police work and writing fiction.
Facts behind the stories
The exhibition does not just display people's favourite police characters but also highlights facts behind the stories and the impact of fiction on reality.
"Sometimes, the image generated by fiction differs from the actual events behind the stories, but in the end the perspective put forward by fiction is transformed into reality. A chain of events like this took place in connection with the killing of police officers in Pihtipudas in central Finland in the 1960s. The representation of the incident in the form of a TV series and a movie differs vastly from the findings presented in the pre-trial investigation reports. The perspective conveyed by fiction may even have impacted the president's decision to grant pardon in the case," states researcher Tiina Tuulasvaara-Kaleva.
The exhibition Police in Fiction was created in cooperation with the National Audiovisual Archive and the Museum of the Moving Image. The exhibition will be open until autumn 2014.
