The "Light is History" project in Helsinki involved a participatory public museum installation that served as a research object in an urban square where community members anonymously displayed information of their personal artifacts and shared their energy use information for the common wellbeing. The weeklong Installation inspired efforts of energy saving, affected the introspection of owning electrical artifacts and generated physical on-site interaction among visitors and participants. Here, the acts of saving, sharing and display of the community’s objects were facilitated by a composite installation made of recycled materials, microprocessors, and assisted by digital media and social networks. The Project tried to establish that a co-curated and participatory framework built around daily practices could be effective in bringing together local community and has outcomes for sustainability, learning and wellbeing. Through this project, the paper examines lessons learnt that could have implications for museum exhibitions and investigates how methodologies of participation and installation can serve as an example for museums in the future to build sustainable practices around artifacts in their own collections.