This paper is a discussion of my art practice working with folk artefacts in museum collections, and their artistic re-animation in different kinds of museum settings across Germany and Finland. Folklore artefacts in historical museums are often in the process of becoming fossilised within the collection. My practice is works with the potential of artistic intervention for their revival and re-framing through artistic speculation. This speculative work makes use of wonder and curiosity as productive tools, processes that seek to open a dialogue with folklore through imagination and questioning. In this context, wellbeing emerges in the museum as a secure space for creative agency. 

In practice this often results in moments of productive doubt, as the presentation of historical data is interrupted by untrustworthy artistic interventions. There is a pause to reflect and look again at what is presented, how it is framed and the use of space between the linear chronology of the collection the kinds of fiction that artworks can deal in. This kind of pause has the chance to re-arrange the museum experience as a re-enchantment of folklore in a historical context, making use of the language of museum display as an experimental backdrop. 

Through this process, artworks temporarily become legible as historical artefacts and folk artefacts likewise move towards becoming readable as artistic and speculative. In my role as an artistic stranger in the museum, it is possible to ask questions of what we can learn from the way that folklore is understood in the museum and to redraw the way that it can be experienced.