Meet Lapinlahti people: Katri Lento

“Every time I visit Lapinlahti, I get the feeling that this is such a wonderful place that I should visit more often.”
This is how Katri Lento, a researcher at the Helsinki City Museum and regional museum work contact officer, describes her mood in Lapinlahti. Katri defines her relationship with Lapinlahti as professional at the moment. Helsinki City Museum is the regional museum responsible for Central Uusimaa. It acts as an expert for 70 cultural and historical museums, including the Mental Museum in the main building of the former Lapinlahti Hospital. The City Museum has advised the Mental Museum on issues such as grant applications and exhibition planning, as well as providing further training in museum studies.
Katri has been working in museums for the past ten years. She considers herself a humanist at heart.
“I studied cultural history as my major at the University of Turku. Before joining the museum sector, I worked for a ministry and researched Helsinki history as a profession. Since spring 2020, I have been working for the Helsinki City Museum. I like working in a nice museum community.”
Cooperation and networking
When Katri started working at the City Museum, the interest rate pandemic had a significant impact on the communication between the museums. Katri recalls that her first contact with the Mental Museum and Pro Lapinlahti’s operations coordinator Katja Liuksiala was probably during a training session via a remote connection. Once Katri was able to visit the Mental Museum’s collections, she and Katja wrote the collection policy that guides the museum’s activities.
“The Mental Museum is one of the most active non-professional museums. Katja has participated in training sessions and has been very effective in developing the museum’s activities. The Mental Museum is also well networked and has collaborated with the Punk Museum and the professional Science Museum Liek.”
On 13 September 2024, the Mental Museum, in collaboration with the City Museum, took part in an event organised by the TAKO network of professional museums to document modernity for posterity. Katri and her colleague interviewed people in Lapinlahti and photographs were taken. The photos will be made available to the public on helsinkikuvia.fi and finna.fi and the interviews will be made available to the City Museum for research purposes.
“What impressed me during the day was the variety of activities and how vibrant a community Lapinlahde Lähde is. It was also agreed that a photographer from the City Museum will record the presentation of the Lapinlahti Municipal Initiative on 9 October at Helsinki City Hall.”
The future of Lapinlahti and the museum
Katri sees positive prospects for the Mental Museum, now that the opening of the renovated museum on 19 November is approaching.
“The main building in Lapinlahti works well as a museum building. The museum’s collections and exhibition space are relatively small, but Lapinlahti hosts a lot of extra activities that support the museum’s mission. Regular history tours open up the history of the hospital to those interested. The museum also already has an audience that understands the value of the place, and the building is visited by many visitors.”
“I hope that in the future the museum will establish itself on the Finnish scale. The museum will continue to be guided by the fine principles of making mental health work and the history of psychiatric nursing visible and reducing stigma. The museum could be even bigger and have changing exhibitions, but the work will continue on the good basis that it has today.”
Katri Lento hopes that the current actors in Lapinlahti will be consulted when deciding the future of the area. The fountain has now been developed for 10 years, and “since it works, why change it for nothing”. Lapinlahti’s buildings should be restored, with care and respect for history. The end result does not have to be shiny and slick.
Katri mentions several times the beauty of Lapinlahti Park and its surroundings. There is a lot going on inside, but the atmosphere is relaxed and unhurried. There is, however, one thing she would like to see improved in Lapinlahti:
“There should be more signposts. Twice I’ve almost got lost on my way to Lapinlahti.”
Text by Juhana Heikkilä
Photo by Matti Koskinen