Number fascination
Number fascinationA reflection on data and measuring
An exhibition is open from 3rd of May until 2nd of October 2022.
Our lives are full of numbers and metrics. The minutes you need to boil an egg, the temperature outside, the hours until the end of the workday, the hourly pay rate of your job, the recommended amount of salt in your daily diet, the number of likes on your latest social media post. Numbers help to make sense of what we think, feel and know. Everything can be measured, once we learn how to count.
Since the 16th century, Europeans have become increasingly obsessed with collecting data. The ability to describe the world quantitatively gave way to modern science and the hope that we could understand how things are.
When you count things, you probably feel achievement and success: the number of followers you have on social media, the clicks on your latest post, the number of steps you have taken this day. But to know what decisions you need to make, good metrics and a clear understanding of what is being measured are needed. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Or can you?
This exhibition is part of Me-Mind, a Creative Europe project that aims to measure and visualise the effect of culture. Throughout the process, we’ve come up with great questions about what measuring and counting mean, their challenges and the effect they can have on people. We’re sharing these thoughts in the form of an exhibition.
Please ask yourself about your relationship with data as you are going through the sections of the exhibition. And when you reach the last one, where we present the results of our investigation, please ask questions and be critical of what we have developed. All data sets should be questioned by as many minds as possible.
The team:
Eesti Rahva MuuseumCurators: Pille Runnel, Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, Agnes Aljas
Exhibition team: Tiit Sibul, Arvi Tragel, Lauri Tamm
Estonian editor: Tuuli Kaalep
English editor: Daniel Edward Allen
Domestic Data Streamers
Curators: Marta Handenawer, Maria Fabuel, Pau Garcia
Management and Production: Irene Altaió, Marta Velasco
Exhibition design: Inés Fernández
Graphic design: Pedro Lipovetzky, Clara Vituri, Dani Verano
Exhibition team: Pol Valverde, Esteban Piacentino, Santi Cros
