Chapter 1 ‘From Start to Finnish’
1.
‘From Start to Finnish’
It cannot be clearly defined where the idea for ‘From Start to Finnish’ project came from — there is no one truth. ‘From Start to Finnish’ is a combination of thoughts of several individuals working in the field of culture, and all of them have their own view of how everything started. In 2004 the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture brought out the condition of the culture export in Finland. It was described to be rising internationally as a prominent competitor compared to the other countries’ supply. Finnish culture production was stated to be appreciated internationally; however the organisations were not able to respond to the international demand. From the aspect of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the strengths of the Finnish culture export were big creative equity, high quality education and research in the field of culture, strong know-how in technology, good domestic infrastructure in culture, functional local market and high quality creative production. Between 2007 and 2011 a national promotion programme for exporting culture was drawn up by the Ministry of Education and Culture in close collaboration with the stakeholders in the cultural field. The programme aimed to raise the export recognition of creative and cultural industries, and the vision was to triple the worth of cultural exports. As part of the promotion programme, the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture established a musical export project aiming to export Finnish musical productions. The fund was granted for three out of seven applicants. The project was divided into four different parts: the order of the manuscript, production in Finland, translation of the manuscript and exporting the production. The project was a huge investment for the ministry, and it generated three musical productions. As the project was coming to an end, and it had involved only musical theatre, it was enquired by the stakeholders whether the ministry could also support the export of Finnish theatre apart from musicals. 4