For Generations - Our Story

It's 2017, late in the year. Winter, icy. We're in the backyard of Fat Margaret. It's a tower leaning over Tallinn's old town wall, the medieval structure. There's a stony doorway we're standing in, me and Heikki, and in one corner of it, hangs a large iron chain, covered in crystalclear ice.

It's 2023, late in the year. Winter, snowy. We're at the Cogge Sive Navis Magna -conference reception, a dinner under a medieval shipwreck -kind of a situation. And not just kind of but precisely that. We're dining literally underneath a medieval ship, which seems to float in air thanks to ingenious exhibition design. The old Tallinn wall is right there, the medieval structure.

We're talking to the conference crowd, telling them a story about how we, two Finnish conservators, came to being as For Our Generation OÜ in Tallinn, Estonia. It's also a fine tale of Finnish-Estonian cooperation and small scale entrepreneurship, the way it's worked out for the two of us.

It's a fitting place to tell it, here, in the hall which now holds the medieval Peeter Cog, because it was precisely here we stood in that stony doorway, that cold winter day 6 years ago, and spotted the iron chain.

It's 2017, late in the year. Winter, icy. We're in the open backyard of the Fat Margaret tower next to Old Tallinn wall. Kinda a forgotten spot, it felt. Urmas Dresen, the director of the Estonian Maritime Museum, and Priit Lätti, one of the museum's archaeologists, are with us. They're the ones who brought us here, to see a discovery made in the Kadriorg park area a few years earlier amidst building construction work. It was a ship, by that time already called the Peeter Cog after the digger operator who was wise enough to halt works when a good chunk of very old wood was unearthed.

Priit Lätti and Heikki Häyhä on board the Peeter Cog. Photo: Eero Ehanti, 2017

We had seen the ship earlier that day, in a tent at Seaplane Harbour. We’d walked on it, studied it, felt it. Her, the ship. And now we're here, at the back of the Fat Margaret tower next to the medieval wall. This is the place where the ship would be exhibited in two years’ time, they tell us.

Backyard of the Fat Margaret tower. Photo: Eero Ehanti, December 2017

Right, we thought. Wow, what a vision! Does it fit here, in this tiny yard? Really? How do you get it here? And most of all, how about conservation? Shipwreck conservations tend to take decades rather than years. And they cost fortunes.

I guess we had a reputation, us having training and experience in dealing with shipwreck finds and years of experience in managing and realizing conservation projects. Such expertise is rare. This is why they, after asking around, reached out to us when trying to find people crazy enough to take the responsibility of conserving this almost 20-meter ship and making sure she can be exhibited right here in two years. Two years!

'So how about it, can you do it?', Urmas asked.

From that day I don't remember much of the talks but I do remember vividly that huge iron chain hanging from one of the stony doorways, from where we had entered the yard. No idea what it was there for or why. Didn't ask. But it was very captivating, covered in thick ice. Water must have run down on it for a long while, encapsulating it in crystalclear ice. Like a tiny frozen waterfall glittering beautifully when I photographed it against yellowish light.

We took it, the gig.

Based on our expertise on shipwreck conservation, we knew that she'd be just fine, in our care. Two years, fine, count us in. Scared and worried, yes, but we're in. We'll do this.

It's 2018, early in the year. Spring awakes. We've become Estonian e-citizens, thanks to which starting a business and handling practicalities was very smooth. The company is up and running. We're in the project, planning and managing and realizing conservation of this ship.

It's a fine spring day. We're here in the same yard, thinking about how it will all eventually evolve to be. And there's still that same thick iron chain. No ice now, just a bare black chain. Dim irony look. Heavy.

I photograph it again, against that light. Love it, because of aesthetics and because of its symbolism. Links in a chain, that's what we are.

The chain is visually striking, which is why we included those two photos, the glittering icy one and dimly metallic one, to the materials we gave to the brilliant graphic designer Laura Kauppinen when she set to design our logo.

So there it is, that iron chain in a stylized form, in our beautiful logo, of which we're very grateful to Laura.

Links in a chain, a continuous one. No end in sight, nor a start. A circular movement back and forth in time, linking together but also circling around. Just understanding that we're here right now, at this time and space and spirit, and we should do our bit with this amazing medieval ship. It's our watch.

Years passed, those two - only! - and we did our deeds together with our wonderful Maritime Museum colleagues, and it was a success. The vision of Urmas and others held, pulled through.

It's November 2019 and we're standing in the place where that iron chain used to be. It's no more. Probably discarded. Only exists in our logo, which we had eventually printed for instance on coasters. Those we hold up for a journalist who had come to cover the story of the Peeter Cog. It's the grand opening of the Fat Margaret museum and we're standing in front of the ship which seems to float in the air.

What a joyous day that was, the opening of the museum. The end of our project. Of the whole company as it has existed until now? I mean, how likely is it that we'll ever get another project like this?

It's 2023, late in the year. The Peeter ship floats in the air above our heads next to the Old Tallinn wall as we recall this story in front of the Cogge Sive Navis Magna conference crowd, who've come here to talk about another medieval ship, the Lootsi ship. Very similar to the Peetri one. We're conserving this one too.

We're on a project again. Still moving in that chain of links - over and around, linked and in direct contact but in permanent movement. There's no repetition, nor a predicted end. But it's just fine, we'll take the risk, openly vulnerable.

Paraphrasing there a bit of Marina Abramovic’s Art Vital Manifesto by heart and with most respect and admiration. It's fitting, I think. Because why not?

It's our company and it’s called For Our Generation, a name we came up with as kind of a comment to what's often said as being the reason why conservation is done. 'It's for future generations!'. Well, true, but we feel that it's also for our generation. We deserve to enjoy and use cultural heritage as we see fit, we, whose turn it is now to take care of that what's called cultural heritage, whatever that might be. Use is best care, in many instances, and use doesn't outplay preservation.

Hence, For Our Generation.

Opening of the Fat Margaret. Photo: Eero Ehanti, November 2019

The name is all the more apt now after some years, when the climate crisis has accelerated to an astonishingly worrying speed. It is clear that all efforts must now be aimed at preserving this planet, in good cooperation with the societies who inhabit it. It's our ethical and professional priority as museum pros to use the collections we have in our care to promote sustainable change. Furthermore, we should acknowledge that not all collections can no longer be preserved in the state they're in.

This is in essence what Nemo, the Network or European Museum Organizations, stated in November in Lahti, Finland, at the end of their very good conference. It resonated loudly with what we'd understood to be in the core of our company's philosophy.

We've also noted the recent refresh of the Bizot Green Protocol and fully agree with the group's declaration of intention: 'We acknowledge the need for our museums to contribute to effecting change in our ways of working and addressing with a sense of urgency the climate and nature crisis.'

So it's a lot about sustainability what we do here. Environmental yes, but also social, which is involved a great deal in something like conserving a medieval shipwreck. In general conserving something that huge and maintaining it in an exhibition is hardly a green choice but if and when it can be done like we’ve chosen to do here thanks to very very favorable conditions, it turns out to be quite sustainable and well worth all the resources used. Because of social aspects for instance. This ship, together with all the items in museums and archives, and the city itself where they're in, gives people understanding of their own places in that chain of links in time and space. Spirit of place too, of this modern capital of tech-pioneering Estonia which once upon a time was a town called Reval, a nodule in the realm of the Hanseatic League.

We’re very glad to be part of this story, which is why we'd like to acknowledge and thank the people around us, the ones who've been with us in the past 6 years in this shipwreck journey of ours.

Urmas Dresen of course, the Director of the Estonian Maritime Museum, whose visions hold through. Priit Lätti and Lisette Reinvars, the archaeologist and our close colleagues working on the Lootsi ship project, and Hele Kiimann, who as the Director of Research at the Maritime Museum oversees everything. Liisa Randmaa too, with whom we worked on the previous wreck, the Peetri one, and Viivi Areva, who's in our conservation team in this Lootsi one. Karen Jagodin too whose work as the project manager of the Fat Margaret project culminated in the opening of that fine branch of the Estonian Maritime Museum in 2019.

All the others at the Estonian Maritime Museum too, of whom Gerli Heinsoo must be mentioned as the one overseeing the Peetri project for us. Eva-Maria Maiste too, whose responsibility it now is to compile all that's been done of the Peetri Cog to a book form. Happy to be part of that, too.

Indeed, it’s a privilege to be working on these ships, for our generation.

Hmm… Perhaps we should change our name to a shortened and more to the point -version. For Generations. Why not?