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Hanna Kaisa Melaranta

Director of museum services, Town of Varkaus/ Chair, Teollisuusperintöseura, TICCIH Finland
Teollisuusperintöseura/ TICCH Finland
Participates in 1 Session

Hanna-Kaisa Melaranta (MSc) is the president of TICCIH Finland (Teollisuusperintöseura) and the Director of Museum Services at the town of Varkaus. 

Hanna-Kaisa Melaranta has been the president of TICCIH Finland since 2018. As the president she has been active starter of the discussion about intangible industrial heritage in Finland. Alone and with her colleague Kirsi Ojala she has been held various presentations about the concept of intangible industrial heritage, for example in Cimuset conference in Kioto, Japan in 2019. 

As a director of the museum of industrial town she has been researching Industrial development of the town of Varkaus, Industrial community and industrial environments and sites. One of her main objectives is the accessibility of the industrial collections of photographs, archives and physical objects (see for industrial collections of Varkaus museums and three other industrial towns). 

Hanna-Kaisa Melaranta is collaborating with the local town development company (Navitas Yrityspalvelut) in a project for developing the Varkaus workers’ housing area and the industrial sites as a site for tourism and business. 

Hanna-Kaisa Melaranta is also collaborating with the University of Jyväskylä, Department of History and Ethnology with a qualitative, multidisciplinary research project People as keepers of intangible industrial heritage in 2020–2022 as a board member and as a part of the project team. 

  • Website:

Main publications

  • Hanna-Kaisa Melaranta: Matkaopas Varkauden teollisiin ympäristöihin (Guide to Varkaus industrial environments), 2019
  • Mari Immonen and Hanna-Kaisa Melaranta: Kerroksien kaupunki (City of layers), 2011
  • Various articles in biographies and other publications Various scripts for exhibitions, including Exhibition Ten Stories from the factory, Varkaus museums 2015-2021

Sessions in which Hanna Kaisa Melaranta participates

Monday 29 August, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Sessions in which Hanna Kaisa Melaranta attends

Monday 29 August, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM | 1 hour 30 minutes
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM | 30 minutes
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM | 1 hour 30 minutes

This session presents case studies and policy reviews that contribute to ongoing debate and international dialogue on the role of planning systems and conservation practices in addressing the challenges of citizen engagement—conserving local interests, place attachments alongside physical remnants of industrial heritage. Over the past half century, we have witnessed the development and changing focuses of urban planning and conservation discourses addressing industrial heritage. Relevant p...

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM | 1 hour 30 minutes

Industrial heritage and photography have a close relationship. Photography is a source for industrial archaeology. It sheds light on the links between people, their tools, their machines and their workplaces. Once the industrial activity is over, photography is also a tool for documenting and studying the sites. But far beyond that, captured by artists capable of transcending common representations, conferring on industrial remains the ugliness of an era that was thought to be over, photog...

Tuesday 30 August, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM | 1 hour 30 minutes

This session focuses on company towns from the perspective of urban planning. “Company towns” are here defined as single-enterprise planned communities, usually centered around a single industry, where a company commissions an urban plan, builds housing for its workers, and sets up recreational, commercial, institutional or community facilities. While these are now endangered by a second wave of deindustrialization, we observe that, aside studies or monographs of individual towns that popu...

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | 1 hour 30 minutes

This session focuses on company towns from the perspective of urban planning. “Company towns” are here defined as single-enterprise planned communities, usually centered around a single industry, where a company commissions an urban plan, builds housing for its workers, and sets up recreational, commercial, institutional or community facilities. While these are now endangered by a second wave of deindustrialization, we observe that, aside studies or monographs of individual towns that popu...

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM | 1 hour 30 minutes

Drawing on case studies from diverse social, cultural, and political contexts the papers in this session discuss the different responses to maintaining and assessing not only the physical sustainability of industrial heritage but also the sustainability of its social values and meaning.

Wednesday 31 August, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM | 1 hour 30 minutes

The Global and Local Section of TICCIH aims to continue its collaborative work by organising a separate session within the framework of the 18th congress in Montreal, Canada. Following its previous sessions centred on various subjects at the Freiberg, Tampere, Taipei and Lille TICCIH conferences, this time the Section will focus on the identity of industrial civilisation in the post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe from the angle of its industrial heritage, lost or preserv...

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM | 1 hour 30 minutes

Examples from several continents, in Europe, South America, North America, Turkey, show strong continuity in the objectives that govern the reuse of industrial buildings, for example the concern to take into account the industrial heritage as a resource for urban and territorial development, or the close links that it has with culture, whether it is used to house cultural facilities or more simply to bear witness to the history and memory of the place. Increasingly, policies for the reuse ...

Thursday 1 September, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Friday 2 September, 2022

Time Zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
7:00 AM - 8:30 AM | 1 hour 30 minutes

Walkers will meet at the entrance (there is only one) of Lionel Groulx Metro and from there walk along the canal to the St-Gabriel Locks. This was once the most heavily industrialized area in Canada. It is now a zone of affluence between the hardscrabble, but now gentrifying, Point Saint-Charles, historically Irish and French, and Little Burgundy, one of Montreal's first multi-racial neighbourhoods. Several former factories were converted into condominiums in the...

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM | 1 hour 30 minutes

In this meeting, TICCIH representatives from around the world will present work in the field of industrial heritage in their respective countries. The presentations are based on the national reports that TICCIH has gathered for the 2022 World Congress, but may emphasize particular matters. These can range across several fields where industrial heritage plays a role – from academic research and other forms of knowledge production, to heritage management a...

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM | 1 hour

In this meeting, TICCIH representatives from around the world will present work in the field of industrial heritage in their respective countries. The presentations are based on the national reports that TICCIH has gathered for the 2022 World Congress, but may emphasize particular matters. These can range across several fields where industrial heritage plays a role – from academic research and other forms of knowledge production, to heritage management a...

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM | 1 hour
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM | 1 hour 30 minutes

At every World Congress, the international TICCIH community celebrates a General Assembly of its members. The event is open for any registered member of TICCIH, as well as the wider public. According to the current TICCIH Statutes (https://ticcih.org/about/statutes/), however, only Na...