Ülle Puustusmaa, Senior Consultant, Strategic and Service Design Lead at Viscosa Cultural Factory (Hiiumaa, Estonia)

Ülle Puustusmaa is a senior consultant, strategic and service design lead, and mentor with over 25 years of experience in cultural, tourism, and regional development across the public, private, and third sectors.

Ülle has extensive expertise in cultural management and development, working with a wide range of cultural institutions and museums, such as the Estonian National Museum, the Estonian History Museum, the Estonian War Museum, the Central City Cultural Centre, as well as numerous other heritage-based, creative, community-led cultural organisations and tourism attractions. Her professional practice spans strategic planning, service and visitor experience design, business models, funding-based development, and evaluation, with a strong emphasis on balancing cultural value, community engagement, accessibility and sustainability.

Ülle is currently involved in the development of the Viscosa Cultural Factory in Estonia, contributing to product and programme development, service design, communication, marketing, and fundraising for a large-scale industrial heritage and contemporary culture initiative.

Culture Is a Verb: Building Trust Through Shared Authority in Museums

This presentation explores how arts and culture organizations can operate as spaces of connection and social meaning in peripheral contexts, using the Viscosa Cultural Factory on the island of Hiiumaa, Estonia, as a distinctive case study.

Viscosa Cultural Factory is located on a small Baltic island with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, limited year-round access to diverse cultural experiences, and strong seasonal fluctuations driven by tourism. Emerging from a formerly closed industrial complex, the transformation of Viscosa into an open cultural and creative industries environment provides an opportunity to examine how mission-driven cultural institutions can take root in places where cultural infrastructure has historically been scarce and trust in closed communities towards external initiatives is fragile.

The first focus, Mission & Universal Values, addresses how Viscosa positions art and culture as a shared space of connection. The organization’s mission emphazises participation, openness and dialogue, using culture as a bridge between local communities, visiting artists and wider cultural networks. In this context, building trust becomes a foundational cultural practice rather than a secondary outcome.

The second focus, Engagement & Social Impact, examines how geo-location and an exceptionally diverse audience mix—local residents, schoolchildren, artists, tourists, cultural professionals, and public and philanthropic partners—actively shape the institution’s voice and communication strategies. Viscosa’s institutional narrative is balancing accessibility and artistic ambition, local identity and international exchange, community needs and cultural leadership.

By analyzing how remoteness functions as both a constraint and a strategic advantage, the session demonstrates how cultural organizations can maintain balance between cultural, social, economic and tourism logics without losing symbolic capital. The Viscosa case offers transferable insights for arts organizations seeking sustainable, inclusive and socially grounded models beyond metropolitan centers.