The Kumu Education Centre works with a very diverse audience, from young children to senior citizens. Alongside social sustainability, we prioritise environmental awareness and recycling. This is reflected in Kumu’s events and programmes, as well as in its day-to-day operations.
To improve audience engagement, the museum collaborates with a range of stakeholders, organisations and networks. Our main partners are school teachers (through information days, cooperation with schools and competitions), the Integration Foundation (through various educational activities and language learning programmes at the museum for speakers of different native languages), the Dementia Competence Centre (through programmes for people with dementia and their families), the Autism School (through the sensory map and the Silent Mornings format) and the Kumu Youth Club (young culture enthusiasts from various schools in Harju County).
Programmes for visitors of all ages:
- Step by Step: toddler mornings for families with children aged 1–3 (in Estonian).
- Family Mornings: for families with children aged 4–8 (in Estonian and Russian).
- Shared Experiences: exhibition tours and workshops for seniors (in Estonian and Russian).
- Kumu Youth Club: Kumu runs a voluntary and free youth club, where young people organise events for young audiences (in Estonian and English). Sustainability is an important focus of these events, as young people are passionate about the environment.
For visitors with special needs:
- Meeting Again: for people with dementia and their families (in Estonian).
- Silent Mornings: for people with autism and hypersensitivity.
- Sensory map: a map of the Kumu building for people with autism and hypersensitivity, providing information on sound levels, lighting and accessibility of the galleries. The map is available at the Kumu ticket office in Estonian, English and Russian.
- 3D model of Kumu: A three-dimensional model of Kumu for use in on-demand programmes, allowing visitors with special needs to get to know the building and feel the architectural forms of the building by touching the model.
- Tactile floor plan: Visually impaired people can borrow a tactile floor plan of the 3rd-floor permanent exhibition from the Kumu ticket office. The plan also shows which artworks are supplied with audio descriptions.
- Accessible audiovisual translation: For the time being, visitors can listen to, read and download the descriptions in Estonian and Russian of ten artworks from the permanent exhibition Landscapes of Identity on the Kumu website. The next step is to create audiovisual descriptions for the permanent exhibition Conflicts and Adaptations.
- Kumu Explorers: an on-demand programme for groups with special needs, adaptable to the needs of the group (in Estonian and Russian).
Educational programmes:
- Kumu offers thematic museum lessons for all school levels (in Estonian, Russian or English), including free e-learning and paid online classes for those school groups that, for various reasons, cannot visit the museum.
- It is also possible to book integrated language and art history lessons at Kumu’s permanent exhibitions. The programmes are suitable for non-native speakers of Estonian who have reached the A2 or B1 level in Estonian. The programmes are based on the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) methodology.
Activities for individual visitors
- Feedback wall: At the 3rd-floor permanent exhibition, various questions and statements encourage visitors to give us feedback in different languages.
- Activity sheets: Visitors can explore the exhibition Landscapes of Identity through creative activities. Activity sheets are available in three languages (Estonian, Russian and English).
- Tegevuslauad – Kumu aatriumis on koha leidnud eelnevatest näitustest taaskasutatud geomeetrilised lauad, mis pakuvad avastamisrõõmu nii väikestele kui ka suurtele külastajatele. Ühel neist on võimalus katsuda erinevaid materjale, millest kunstiteosed on tehtud. Lugemislaualt leiavad külastajad kohapeal lugemiseks valiku kunstikirjandust eesti, inglise ja vene keeles. Kolmas tegevuslaud kutsub külastajaid võimalikult kõrget torni ehitama ning rõhutab seeläbi muuseumi vastutust otsida pidevat tasakaalu ja hoida mitte ainult kultuuriväärtusi, vaid ka keskkonda.
Environmental sustainability
- The Kumu Education Centre prints all materials on eco-labelled paper, usually in black and white.
- For painting and drawing, paper for Kumu studios is supplied by the Räpina paper mill, which uses waste paper collected in Estonia as raw material.
- The Kumu Education Centre’s worksheets and activities for teachers and families are available free of charge on our website.
- Gifts and mementos from the Kumu Education Centre are wrapped in recycled paper (e.g. old posters from museum exhibitions).
- Kumu studios reuse in-house waste materials, from old posters and calendars to plywood and wall paint.
- The use of leftover materials from exhibitions is a deliberate choice, integrated into the design of the Centre’s programmes.
- The Kumu Education Centre often organises workshops promoting recycling and reuse. For example, we have made Christmas decorations and pencil holders out of soft drink cans, used strips of coloured paper left over from the studios and the publishing office in quilling workshops, melted glass shards into new plates and window decorations, and made brooches and badges from scraps of laser-cut plywood.