The appeal of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, is based on the fact that Kalevala, its themes and personalities are widely known in the world. Its types of persons, themes and situations are familiar, even if Kalevala itself is not known.
The project refines Kalevala into a new, modern and contemporary implementation that also appeals to young people and serves as a tourist attraction for the whole family. The project is international in its target thinking, as its activities consider not only domestic but also international customers. The project will integrate entrepreneurs and experts from different fields to edit a new, diverse Kalevala image. The actual target group of the project are micro and small companies in North Karelian that want to develop their service and / or product range based on the Kalevala mythology.
The implementation of the project is divided into four work packages, which form the project’s commercialization path.
Work package 1: Thematic and Utilization of Cultural Content in Companies’ Business
The cultural content themes include Kalevala content development, storytelling and productization of various elements for the tourism services of a sparsely populated area (stories and their connection to rural tourism; i.e. food traditions, sauna, folk healing, berry picking, mushroom picking, navigating the waters, geocaching, etc.) The work package creates clear interpretations of the Kalevala as well as thematic information and product packages for future workshops.
Work Package 2: Commercialization of Intangible Culture Workshops
The workshops will develop commercialization pathways through pilots and demos related to Kalevala. The innovation workshops utilize the Kalevala information and the product packages created in Work Package 1. The aim is to apply the background material to the companies’ operations and strengths. The work package will be implemented simultaneously with Work Package 3, utilizing its results.
Work package 3: Increasing customer understanding of Kalevala in the international markets, and testing the produced story products in selected target markets.
Work Package 4: A Kalevala Network Innovation Platform and A Guide to the Commercialization of Intangible Culture
As a result of the commercialization path, a regional Kalevala network innovation platform will be created, which will bring together the pilots, demos, operating concepts created during the project for companies to use. The work package is based on the previous activities of the project, the creation of business networks, the creation of new regional service concepts, branding around the themes, and understanding common cultural themes.