Barbie - the Icon exhibition

A temporary exhibition in the National Museum of Finland.

From 27. April  till 26. August 2018

I was looking forward to visit this exhibition, but I had a hard time finding the time to do so! Finally, when I found the time and energy, I dragged my mom with me to the museum. We went there on the 18th of August (Saturday) which is to say one week before the exhibition would end.

I don't know about you, but when I think about a museum, I don't imagine there being big crowds and waiting in line involved that much, rather almost empty rooms and a quiet place. Once we stepped through the main entrance  we were in for a shock. There was a huge damn line of people going across the room! The cost of the entry tickets (which are stickers actually) was 15€ per person, we got them without having to wait for too long.  We asked the cashier if there's been this kind of crowd here before and she was like "I've never seen anything like this" and she also told us she had to give a refund to someone who got tired of waiting in line and left the museum without seeing the exhibition. Yikes! Never expected to hear something like this happening in a museum! My mom and me ended up waiting around 20-30 minutes before we got inside the exhibition hall. Little did we realize our waiting had only just begun!

Obviously the dolls where inside glass cabinets so people wouldn't be able to touch them. There were literally queue's of people to every glass case in sight! If you tried to free roam your way through the exhibition you were without exception blocked by a wall of people. If you wanted a chance to actually SEE the dolls you had to get in line, otherwise the best view you were going to get was a peek.

Maybe they designed the show with mainly children in mind, because there is no other excuse for the display cases for being so damn low. If I wanted to take a closer look at any doll's details, I had to bend half way over to be able to see anything. I can imagine a person with any sort of back pain trying to enjoy this exhibition.  For f*ck's sake at least few of the dolls could have been placed closer to the eye level of an adult person.

And then there were the children..... the place was swarming with them. And not with the good mannered -kind of children. I lost the track of time, but I think we were in the museum something around 1,5 -2 hours, and for that ENTIRE TIME  there was this one kid crying and screaming her lungs out. I can tolerate babies and toddlers crying, but this kid looked like a six year old and she was screaming that she's hurting the ENTIRE TIME and (I'm assuming) the mother did absolutely nothing. Based on the lack of any reaction from the mother, maybe then the kid was just having a tantrum of epic proportions, but for common decency's sake I wish the mom could have at least tried to calm her kid down.

And then there was this other little girl who banged her hands against the display case with this single wedding dress doll inside it till the point the doll was shaking and I was afraid the doll was going to fall over. Again, the kid's mother stood right next to her and did absolutely nothing.

On the brighter side of things, while we were still waiting in line for the entry, there was this young boy with his mother and grandmother standing behind us. Now that kid was really nice and calm! He seemed to be actually interested and didn't appear to have been dragged there against his will.

As I mentioned before, I imagine museums to be these quiet and peaceful places, but hell no, that wasn't the case this time. There was this constant background noise of people talking VERY LOUDLY and I could still hear them even if I covered my ears. I swear, I have been to anime conventions quieter than this zoo!

Despite that the whole experience was very uncomfortable to say the least, what did I think of the exhibition itself? The dolls they had on display were really beautiful, but overall I think it was pretty small and (in lack of a better word) shallow and not worth the price of 15€ entry fee. I've only recently gotten interested in fashion dolls again, and even I know that too many things about the history of Barbie were glossed over or nonexistent in the exhibition. All things considered, I was expecting more and this particular museum trip just felt like a let down. Still.... I'm still happy I saw the exhibit and all the pretty dolls, despite everything I just said.

I definitely liked the modern dolls more! I didn't really feel anything towards the earlier Barbie dolls, most of them just look a little creepy to be honest! It's hard to pick one favorite above all the other dolls, but some of my favorites were the dolls based on paintings and real life people/movie characters. Oh! And the "Goddess" dolls with their extravagant costumes were a real treat for the eyes! I really loved the designer illustrations on the wall also, shame there were so few of them.
I did try to snap a photo of any doll I really liked or any with details I found interesting, but there was always this feeling that I need to hurry up and move along because there was always people behind me waiting in line.

random little details

In retrospect: Hoth-Con 2017

Hoth-Con 2015

Hoth-Con 2016

Third time's the charm?

Day of the event

Saturday and Sunday 2. -3. December 2017 Gloria, Helsinki

Guest of Honor's:

Femi Taylor - OOLA - Return Of The Jedi

Paul Blake - GREEDO - A New Hope 

The event included: discussion panels, vendors, themed food, cosplay competition, tattoos and of course, guest's Q&A.

I was there only on Saturday and I left really early, so I'm just sharing my experience for the short time I was there. I can't say that I was impressed by this year's event. Very much like the first year, this felt really lackluster. I don't know what it is but this convention is missing something! One of the missing things was definitely people. The place was half empty the entire time I was there. Last year when Jeremy Bulloch was there, there were lines you had stand in and wait for your turn. This time, I could have just walked straight to the guest's table without queuing (if I didn't need a half an hour to gather courage to do so) because there were no other people around. This makes me feel bad for the guests, I hope they didn't feel like they were wasting their time. I dislike crowds very much, so it feels weird saying that there were too little people.

My biggest gripe with this convention is how I don't feel I'm getting my money's worth. Sure, the one day ticket that costs me (about) 25€ grants me entrance to this nightclub like venue place I very much dislike, and what do I get in exchange? Hours upon hours of waiting for something to happen. The few panels there were during the day, none of them was about Star Wars! Therefore, I'm not tempted to spend time listening to a topic that doesn't interest me at all. In contrast, at every anime convention I've been to over the years, I've always had to plan ahead and pick out the panels that interest me the most. Sitting through panels are great ways to pass the time when you are waiting for any main events that usually happen later during the day.  In Hoth-con's case, as I was there only for Saturday, so the main thing I was waiting for was the Femi Taylor Q&A (Paul Blake Q&A was on Sunday).

Let's say the venue place opened it's doors at 11 AM and the Q&A starts at 6 PM, that leaves me 7 hours to linger around. I take a look around, I check out all the merchandise for sale, I play the pinball game, I get something to eat and drink, I go see the exhibition, I get the guest's autographs and photos taken with me, and I buy stuff.  Even if I go full slowpoke trying to stretch the time, that still leaves me 4 hours of waiting for the Guest's Q&A. I get fed up from the waiting and leave the venue place. I played some Pokemon Go, checked out some stores nearby and even after that, there were till hours left for me to wait. At this point, I decided to head home, because that alone was going to take me hours and it was wintertime, so it was already starting to get dark. I got what I came for, the autographs, so despite all the waiting I was happy, but also somewhat disappointed about missing the guest's discussion panels. I won't deny that I was also very frustrated, because I know this convention could be so much better!

Enough of the negative, here's my positive things about Hoth-con 2017:

I really liked the food that was named to fit the Star Wars theme! Usually I don't put much money into buying food and drinks, but for this occasion I treated myself. I bought a drink called the Nerf Herder, I don't remember what flavor it was, but it was good! Gotta love the mini lightsaber-glowstick! As for the cupcakes, I was unable to pick just one so I took both the chocolate Death Star and the mojito BB-8. The mojito was a little bit too strong for my taste and so, classic chocolate wins!

Aside from getting the autographs, the next best thing was to check out the very nice exhibitions by Veera Pirilä (cubistic Star Wars character paintings) and Janne Mällinen (stunning images created from photographs of SW action figures). Check them out!
Pirilä's homepage http://www.veerapirila.com/
Mällinen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/truupperi/

There was also this laughably small artist alley.... I've never bought anything from an artist alley so I went ahead and bought this art print. I'm ashamed to admit I don't remember the artist name anymore, even though I did ask him to sign it. ^^;

***

I couldn't help it, I had to buy my first Jabba the Hutt figure, especially when it borderlines almost cute like this one! And the Lego-Oola (probably fake) just for the occasion.

Maul, for the sake of collecting more Maul. The plushie is from a vendor at the convention. The still in package one, I found it in a comic book shop that also sell tabletop game pieces, which I suppose this one also is. The two smaller ones I bought from a shop that sold used DVD and Blu-ray movies just a few blocks away from the convention. I was looking through the two small cabinets with various film figures they had in the shop and spotted these two!

I was happy to see this one vendor having some other of my favorite series in his selection. The bookmarks, postcards, pins and coasters were too cheap to resist, so I bought a whole bunch of them.

***

yay! <3

In retrospect: Suuri Snadi 2017

Picture post

Railroad, dollhouse, diorama and miniature show

 Day of the event: Saturday and Sunday 14. - 15.10.2017 Otahalli, Espoon Otaniemi

Older posts from previous years events: 2015, 2016

Yeah, I didn't take many great pictures this year, I mostly focused on photographing the contest pieces, small details and the models that interested me. Now in hindsight, I should have taken way more pictures with a greater view of the event overall instead of just admiring the small things there. ....and yes, I am terrible at taking notes on the people who created these awesome stuff. 

I was there only for the Saturday and I didn't go on an all out shopping spree like I did my first time at the event. I bought three dolls and some assortment of clothes for them from various sellers...and that's all I remember at least. Oh yeah, and I missed out on some Star Wars figures! I was thinking to myself, I'd buy them on my way out of the event, but someone else had already bought them when I was about to leave.
Boohoo ;C

Previously the show was held in Vantaa, but this time it was in Espoo, which meant I had to take a local bus to get there instead of taking a train. I was a bit nervous, because I've never been to Espoo, but everything worked just fine in the end.

Awesome <3

EPIC!