Metal Export exhibition to open at Music Museum FAME in July
Toni-Matti Karjalainen, who has been granted the title of docent by the Aalto University School of Business, has studied the cultural narratives of music media and the music industry. His key areas of interest include Finnish heavy metal music export and its narratives, as well as the role of music in building the Finnish country brand.
A new exhibition called Metal Export:Snapshots from Finnish Heavy Metal Music's Global Travels will open at the Finnish Music Hall of Fame (Music Museum FAME, Mall of Tripla) on 10 July. Toni-Matti Karjalainen, who is also a member of FAME’s Advisory Board, has written the script of the exhibition, carried out the artist interviews and chosen the exhibits. He has also participated in the visual design and technical implementation of the exhibition as part of a larger team of professionals.
‘Finnish metal music is a hot export item! The Music Museum exhibition presents selected snapshots of Finnish heavy metal's global travels from the 1980s to this day. It explains how our small northern country became a great power in metal music and how a marginal music genre became the top product of Finnish music exports and the leading star of the Finnish country brand,’ Toni-Matti Karjalainen says.
‘The content of the exhibition is largely based on my Academy Research Fellow project titled Trade of Cultural Narratives in Rock Music Industry, which I completed at the end of last year. It’s great to be able to tell the general public about the study in a compact and surprising form. The exhibition space resembles a backstage and includes a brief history review and anecdotes, interesting objects, live videos and new interviews with artists. Don’t hesitate to visit the exhibition and the museum, it's a great place,’ Karjalainen says.
Small-scale Modern Heavy Metal conference to be held online
As part of his research project, Toni-Matti Karjalainen also organised the international Modern Heavy Metal (MHM) conference five times in 2015–2019. This year’s event will be held at the end of June as an online conference. Originally the conference was supposed to be part of a larger cluster of events including the Metal Export exhibition, the Tuska Festival and various side events, but these plans had to be abandoned due to the coronavirus crisis.
‘This time, due to the exceptional situation, we are organising a small-scale conference online. We will have more than 20 presentations from several different countries, and we hope that the presentations will also spark good discussions despite the remote nature of the conference. The Zoom-based event is free of charge and open to anyone interested in research focusing on metal music and metal culture. The programme will be published and the registration will open later this month,’ Karjalainen says.
After the conference, Toni-Matti Karjalainen will take up a new role as Professor of Arts Management at Sibelius Academy. Sibelius Academy is part of the University of the Arts Helsinki. Karjalainen’s five-year term in this post will begin on 1 August 2020.
Further information:
toni-matti.karjalainen@aalto.fi
tel. +358 50 357 4047
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