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