The Helsinki City Museum's Sun Bodi exhibition is a speech to the gym cultures of different times. Both Kike Elomaa and Arnold Schwarzenegger are involved.
“Sadly the famous gym pants”, says the public service manager of the Helsinki City Museum Jari Harju.
“After all, in the 1980s they became the clothing of the entire nation for every occasion.”
Helsinki City Museum exhibition Sun Bodi – The sweaty history of gyms brings his own perspective to the gym culture.
In addition to the health aspect, the exhibition also discusses appearance pressures related to training and, for example, the use of supplements.
In gym history The 80s were a turning point.
The number of gyms in Helsinki grew explosively, and the boom continued until the turn of the millennium. Back in the 1970s, the gym hobby was a matter for a very small group.
“Or that a bar was lifted somewhere on the beach.”
Suddenly, a strange species became common. Kike Elomaa made the sport famous in Finland by winning the European bodybuilding championship in 1981.
The main starting point for training was appearance. With that, dressing also became a central part of the hobby. Gym clothes arrived on the street scene.
One however, the starting point is in the 1930s, when Helsinki's first gym was opened. Of course, the history goes back further.
According to Harju, athlete thinking started to rise at the end of the 19th century. In 1891, Finland's oldest athletics club, Helsinki Athletics Club, was founded.
During the last decade, working out has experienced “quite a renaissance”. Self-centeredness has taken center stage, which, according to Harju, is a certain version of the 1980s.
“Going to the gym is no longer just about bodybuilding or training, but about building the whole self,” says Harju.
For training related exhibition has been considered for a longer time.
“We strive to find such current topics that the topic is on the surface anyway, and the exhibition is not the only opportunity to speak.”
The exhibition is at the heart of its subject: in addition to the exhibits, there is gym equipment that you can use.
At the exhibition, you can train on a rowing machine, pedal an exercise bike or train on an overhead pulley. The video content of the exhibition can be viewed on the screens of the devices.
“If you make an exhibition out of gyms, it would seem wonderful if people would just stand and look at the walls.”
You can also work out at the exhibition using the gym equipment brought there.
Exhibition for this, gym-goers' thoughts on the ideal body and training goals have been collected. The range of answers was varied.
Harju thinks that we should get rid of the seriousness associated with training, “working out with bulging forehead veins”.
He hopes people will understand that you can also visit the gym with a low threshold.
“I hope you don't think that you should reach, for example, Schwarzenegger's dimensions.”
Ridge the phenomena related to the self-centeredness of today's training culture are thought-provoking, such as taking pictures and sharing them on, for example, Instagram.
For example, Harju brings up the phenomenon where the angle of view is chosen so that the back looks as big as possible.
“You get tired of everything like this. And when it's not just on Instagram, but the same pictures are everywhere. I don't know if it's dangerous, but maybe it's not so terribly healthy.”
“The hall image becomes a generally accepted image, and it slowly creeps into places where it might not be quite right.”
Sun Bodi – The sweaty history of gyms at the Helsinki City Museum until February 25.
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