Award-winning! Smart Work 2026: Sleepy Maija’s Relaxation Workshop at the City Museum

The exhibition Unessa (“In Sleep”) opened at the Skogster Museum on 20 November 2024, exploring the cultural history of sleep. The City Museum is a cultural path destination for lower secondary schools, and I designed a workshop for spring 2025 to fit the exhibition’s themes, aimed at ninth-graders. The cultural path workshop begins with a short introduction, after which participants lie back on yoga mats in the exhibition space, listening to traditional lullabies. Between the songs, the guide tells the history of the Sandman and reads Topelius’s sleep fairy tale. The mood lighting in the room can be dimmed to a cosy darkness – with only moonlit night clouds glowing.

I further developed a one-hour relaxation workshop, Sleepy Maija’s Relaxation Workshop, aimed at all museum visitors. Sleep-themed music guides the course of the workshop (from Sibelius to Finnish rap, through schlager, to Twin Peaks).

Contents of the relaxation workshop:

• A standing warm-up with gentle movement, stretching, and balance exercises (counting sheep, putting on a nightshirt, drawing the moon, and shining like a star in the night sky).
• Relaxing while lying on yoga mats (an imaginary journey to a ball to the rhythm of Valse triste, lullabies, the guide tells the sometimes wild history of the Sandman and reads Topelius’s tale of the Downy Islands).
• Waking up with stretches and finally shaking ourselves awake to the rhythm of Nightmare.

The museum can also be experienced physically, not only in the traditional way of viewing exhibits and reading texts. The museum is a place for experiences and a break from everyday life. Mindfulness belongs in the museum.
The relaxation workshop concept can also be applied to future exhibitions. Through movements of their own body, visitors can delve deeper into the exhibition’s themes. Instead of a traditional guided walking tour, an exhibition tour can also be conducted so that the visitor relaxes on a yoga mat while listening.

Sleepy Maija’s Relaxation Workshops were held on weekend mornings in spring and autumn 2025. The relaxation workshops are held within the working hours of the museum services coordinator, so they do not incur any additional costs for the museum. Visitors pay the regular museum admission fee, which includes access to all the museum’s exhibitions.

Developer

Piritta Puomiranta, Museum Services Coordinator, Hämeenlinna City Museum