Art and Museum Centre Sinkka

Art and Museum Centre Sinkka, which opened in 2012, is home to the Kerava Museum and the Kerava Art Museum. Sinkka showcases works from the designers of the Keravan Puusepäntehdas cabinetmakers factory and the lamp and light-fixture factory Orno interlaced with contemporary art and the latest trends in visual arts. In addition to the exhibitions and events Sinkka’s guests can enjoy the Museum Shop and Café or book private events from small-scale meetings to large functions.

Discover Sinkka, just 20 minutes from Helsinki

Kultasepänkatu 2
04250 Kerava, Finland
(main entrance at Sampolankatu)
+ 358 40 318 4300, sinkka(a)kerava.fi

Kerava is located about 30 kilometers from Helsinki city center. You can access Kerava by local trains R, Z, K, T and D (from Helsinki), by R (from Tampere), by Z (from Lahti). Sinkka is about 600 meters from the Kerava Train station.

All rooms open to public are accessible with assistance for persons with disabilities. There is a free car park behind the building. The café and museum shop follow the same opening hours as the museum.

Opening hours
Tue, Thu, Fri 11am–6pm
Wed 12 noon–7pm
Sat, Sun 11am–5pm

Summer opening hours
June 6^th –August 20^th 2023:
Tue–Fri 11am–6pm
Sat–Sun 11am–5pm

Tickets:
Adults: €8
Seniors, students: €5
Children under 18: free
We accept the Finnish Museum Card, Museokortti.
Admission is free on the first Sunday of the month.

Exceptions to opening hours:
2023
Jan. 1^stclosed
Jan. 6^th open 11am–5pm
Jan. 9.–31. closed

Bookings for guided tours and rooms for functions
You can book an english speaking guide for you or for your group.
Guided tours: On weekdays during opening hours €50, on weekdays outside opening hours €75, weekends during opening hours €90.

Sinkka is also available for private functions such as meetings and parties.
For more information and bookings please contact + 358 (0)40 318 4300 / sinkka(a)kerava.fi

Join us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/TaideJaMuseokeskusSinkka
Follow us on Instagram: www.instagram.com/taidejamuseokeskus_sinkka

EXHIBITIONS

OLOF OTTELIN
Interior Architect and Designer
1./2.–16./4.2023

Olof Ottelin (1917–1971) was an interior architect and furniture designer from the 1940s to the 1960s, when Finns were only just learning about interior decoration. He built a successful career as a designer of furniture and interiors for both homes and public spaces, and as the artistic director of the department store Stockmann’s interior decoration department.

Ottelin was also known as a toy designer and accomplished artist who observed politics, culture and contemporary trends through a lens of warm-hearted humour.

The exhibition presents Ottelin’s interior decoration projects, design philosophy and the furniture manufactured by Keravan Puusepäntehdas furniture makers factory.

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

NEO RAUCH & ROSA LOY
Das Alte Land
6./5.–20./8.2023

Neo Rauch (born 1960) is one of the most prominent names in contemporary art. When Germany was unified, he became the brightest star of the New Leipzig School, known for figurative yet somehow otherworldly paintings. In addition to private collections and European museums, his works can be found in world-renowned museums, such as MoMa and Guggenheim in New York. In recent years, Rauch has appeared alongside his wife, the prominent artist Rosa Loy (born 1958).

The works of these global phenoms are now shown in Finland for the first time. Das Alte Land features a wide range of works that thematically stem from deep within the ancient lands lined by the Harz Mountains.

MAGIC!
9./9.2023–7./1.2024

Magic and sleight of hand have always fascinated people. The Magic! exhibition makes visitors question their eyes and wonder if they are witnessing something wondrous, or even magical. The exhibition features the works of professionals in art and magic who have filled the museum with mechanical magic machines, curiously moving houseplants, ghosts seeking escape and a labyrinth of endless reflections. The pieces on display bring us face to face with the extraordinary, into a world where everything is simultaneously possible and impossible.

The exhibition includes live performances, the schedule of which will be specified later. The exhibition is enabled by the support of the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.

PAST EXHIBITIONS

NORTHERN MYRIAD – POHJOINEN MYRIADI
1./10.2022–8./1.2023

KIRSI KAULANEN
Sara Leino | Teho Majamäki | Lauri Porra

Northern myriad surrounds the viewer like the landscape from the fells or the silent sound of space. The exhibition focuses on the laser-cut steel sculptures by Kirsi Kaulanen (b. 1969), a leading contemporary Finnish artist. The sculptures borrow their form from the contours of endangered plants and the ornamentation of the roots hidden under the forest floor.

Spreading on the walls, ceiling and floor, the sculptures are like living organisms or unknown universes. Full of details, they fill the space as a galaxy landed on the surface of Earth. The light rays reflecting off the steel and shadows floating on the walls are created by lighting designer Sara Leino. The spatial soundscape on the ground floor is created by composer and musician Lauri Porra.

With roots to Äkäslompolo, the village of seven fells in Kolari, Northern Finland, everything in Kaulanen’s art can be traced back to nature. For her, connection with and understanding of nature are a source of inexhaustible creativity and a prerequisite of existence: “I feel at home in myself when I am in the forest. The forest’s geometry, ornamentation and natural forms are imprinted in my body memory and flow through my hands into concrete forms.” The fear of the loss of biodiversity is there, but so is also an experience of beauty, enchantment and shared destiny.

In ancient Finnish culture, man, nature, and the universe were one. The universe was believed to be supported by a huge “world pillar”, Sammas, that created the order of the world and connected the vault of heaven to the Earth. Kaulanen’s wooden world pillar dominates the exhibition space. Wood, specifically spruce, pine and aspen, are also the materials of the womb-like comforting work State of Being (Olotila). Its soundscape is created in cooperation with sound designer and percussionist Teho Majamäki. Majamäki is also responsible for the soundscape of the Motus body of works, with the sculptures functioning as soloists.

In recent years, Kirsi Kaulanen has focused on designing and implementing public artworks. The most recent of these is the memorial to former President Mauno Koivisto, called The Mediator (Välittäjä), which will be located in Little Parliament Park in Helsinki. Its over two-metre miniature model will be displayed at the exhibition for the first time.

KERAVAN KRAFFITI
Sherwood Rocks
21/5.–11/9.2022

A Hollywood-style Sherwood sign appeared on the hillside of Keinukallio in Kerava one night in December 2015. Kerava’s nickname was first used in the 1970s, when the city’s Swedish name Kervo was altered into Sherwood in the local youth slang inspired by American culture.

Sherwood Rocks is a tribute to youth, music, and communal spirit. The exhibition is based on a research project that took place in 2020–2021. We interviewed dozens of people, who lived and spent their youth in Kerava in the 1970s and 1980s, collected pictures and memories. Their stories tell about a city where the youth took actively part on shaping a culture of their own.

The exhibition is named after American Graffiti, an American film about young people in a small town. The film, which premiered in Finland in 1975, inspired a huge fifties boom with Teddy & The Tigers from Kerava as the brightest star of its music scene. The youth widely adopted influences from the fifties and the style was visible in the streets of Kerava.

From the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, Kerava was a forerunner in music and youth culture.
After Teddy & The Tigers, Kermu, the honest music association of Kerava, organized club nights, gigs and training facilities for bands. Several well-known bands and top music professionals rose within the association.

During the 1980s, Finland was a different country than today. It was a time of a unified culture that did not always consider different minorities, nor recognize symbols that are nowadays regarded as clearly racist. In the exhibition, these blind spots have been placed inside old school desks, places of learning.

The exhibition dates back from the time of rocker culture and peace marches to the aftermath of recession in the 1990s, when youngsters gathered in an indoor amusement park in Kerava to party and dance. There were Yankee cars hanging from the ceiling as people span in rides, played Nintendo games, and watched Hollywood movies.

”In youth, the long-term plan is tomorrow.” – AP

Over the years, making art has become an even more of a two-way process than before. Occasionally, the audience gets to complete the artwork by, for example, throwing darts. At other times, the artist shares the joy and pain of creating with another artist. This exhibition presents eight artist couples or duos who have been working together for a long time and claimed their place on the contemporary art field.

Working together is an endurance sport. Some of the exhibition’s artists started collaborating already in the 1980s. Some of the artists are just co-workers, while some also live together. The traditional methods of making art do not easily convert into tools needed in equal teamwork. Instead, when you work together, you can build artificial lunar eclipses, labyrinths, bird videos, girl performances and the entire main room of a home in Mäntsälä with views of the forest.

ON THE AIR – ILMASSA
16/10.2021–16/1.2022

This exhibition was supposed to open a year ago, but there was something in the air. Invisible aerosol particles spread around the globe, infecting thousands of people. In the Caribbean, the annual carnivals had to be cancelled and in Kerava, the exhibition got somewhat darker shades than originally planned. What was born, is a loud yet poetic whole with balloons, glitter, inflatables, clouds, and artificial storms.

The French artist Charles Pétillon, debuting in Finland, considers himself an archaeologist of forms and an ethnologist of images, a kind of researcher of spiritual and material culture. White balloons are his trademark. Of these, Pétillon builds his Interventions, which he records by photographing. Deserted playing fields and empty buildings rise out of everyday life and direct our attention to the aesthetic and poetic layers of reality.

Balloons play a key role also in the works of Jiri Geller, Anni Kinnunen and Timo Wright. They deal with themes related to environment, perception, and the wonder of human existence. The theme of control is visible in Timo Aho’s “botanical garden”, where plastic plants breathe the same air as humans.

Josefina Nelimarkka and Paula Lehtonen make us look up at the sky. We can venture into the eye of the storm or watch the deformation of the clouds accompanied by gentle tunes. In her work, Nelimarkka utilizes climate data collected by researchers. The idea for Saara-Maria Kariranta’s and Jarmo Ilmari Somppi’s poetic work Weight of Energy was instead born from a simple observation on how intriguingly the airflow makes light plastic shreds fly.

We may well imagine that we are only a small part of the universe. However, there are tons of star dust floating in the air. Space makes us feel small, but it also creates the desire to control and shine as a star among the stars. The glitter glow of Marianna Uutinen’s paintings is like a magical nebula, at the same time banal, erotic, and sublime. Space also brings out the theme of temporality. Jarmo Ilmari Somppi’s Afterlife Resort invites us for a virtual flight during which we can dive through the space of colours and travel towards light.

Exhibition publication-pdf: Ilmassa – On the Air -pdf

The exhibition centres around Kimmo Kaivanto’s (1932–2012) works of art that discuss and relate to environmental topics. Kaivanto was one of the first visual artists in Finland to discuss ecological themes in a visible manner. Kaivanto’s blue is a concept and the guiding idea of this exhibition. Alongside Kaivanto, we see art from five contemporary artists who depict the world we live in and the utopias of the future. The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Kimmo Kaivanto Foundation.

Exhibition publivation pdf: Sininen planeetta – The Blue Planet -pdf 4MB

WOMEN, MASKS AND WILDERNESS – NAISIA, NAAMIOITA JA VILLIÄ LUONTOA Kerttu Horila feat. Samuli Heimonen, Jenni Hiltunen, Eeva Peura, Elina Ruohonen 5/9.2020–10/1.2021 (museum closed 28/11.2020–10/1.2021)

This autumn, Sinkka will be taken over by Kerttu Horila’s (b. 1946) funny and touching ceramic characters. In this partially retrospective exhibition, viewers are transported into the world of animals, women’s costume parties and fairy tales where things never quite turn out how they were written. Horila is known as a portrayer of women and theatrical divas. Posing in the paintings of Jenni Hiltunen are the women of the “selfie era”.

In Horila’s latest artworks, people take on the figure of an edgy house cat, rabbit or wolf mother. At Sinkka, these hearty, self-aware and rebellious creatures are joined by Samuli Heimonen’s wolves. Masquerading is a common theme shared by both Horila and Heimonen. In Elina Ruohonen’s paintings, the balance of power between humans and animals is flipped. Humanity is infused with other living – and lifeless nature.

On the top floor of the exhibition, the viewer is moved into the world of an aging woman and old fairy tales that have gone awry. There, the story is governed by aged Peter Pan and other fairy tale characters, that are juxtaposed with Eeva Peura’s mysterious paintings.

ONCE UPON A TIME – OLIPA KERRAN The Aune Laaksonen Art Foundation
22/1.– (closed 18/3–1/6) – 23/8.

Artworks often hold a multitude of stories, with viewers also adding their own chapters. In this exhibition, the Aune Laaksonen Art Foundation’s collection is approached through these stories. What memories are associated with the artworks or what kind of thoughts and feelings do they evoke? The authors of these stories are the artists, the collectors of the collection and the viewers who interpret the works of art. A white grand piano plays in the background.

The Aune Laaksonen Art Foundation’s art collection, donated to Kerava in 2018, includes over two-thousand artworks from leading Finnish artists. The main collection is linked to the birth of the Kerava Art Museum and was collected between 1971 and 2004. The exhibited works include art by artists Outi Heiskanen, Kuutti Lavonen, Antti Tanttu, Nina Terno and Hannu Väisänen to name a few.

POP UP EXHIBITION!

IDA NISONEN
I miss you so
30/6.−23/8.2020

Pop up exhibition ”I miss you so” by Ida Nisonen (b. 1981), a photo artist based in Kerava, is a story about isolation, longing and remote meetings during the COVID-19 situation. The Government-based guidelines for social distancing quickly became a way to live through the pandemic. Adapting to digital communication as part of everyday life was a foregone conclusion if one wanted to communicate with friends and family.

Enforced social isolating showed us how much we depend on each other. We were told that other people, even the nearest and dearest, are the biggest threat to our personal health. Social distancing was meant to keep us safe and alive during the pandemic but, at the same time, it caused tremendous amounts of pain, negative emotions and doubt.

Ida Nisonen graduated as a photographer from the Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Arts in 2010. For her, photography was a way to deal with the overwhelming longing for her dearest ones during the pandemic. She ended up building an altar or sanctum for the video calls that had become her way to cross the barrier of isolation.

Flower arrangements around incoming calls were especially crafted for every person Nisonen had a conversation with. Flowers blooming in different times of spring gave her hope during the undetermined length of time spent waiting. Spring passed and turned to summer. The last picture was taken on Midsummer Day when the Government had already started to cut back on the strictest restrictions.

SILHOUETTES AND SHADOWS – SILUETTEJA JA VARJOKUVIA 7/9.2019−5/1.2020

Kerava Art Museum’s exhibition leads us to the intriguing world of light and shadows. The artists combine the traditional skill of cut outs and shadow images with contemporary expression and themes of memory, identity, ecology and politics.

Silhouettes may be created in any visual artistic media, but were first used to describe pieces of cut paper. Cutting portraits, generally in profile, from black card became popular in the mid-18th century, and travelling silhouette artists continued to work at state fairs into the 20th century. These historical roots are represented by the Finnish sculptor Emil Cedercreutz (1879−1949) and the German Lotte Reiniger (1899−1981), one of the great pioneers of shadow animation.

In this exhibition, the pioneers of silhouette art are joined by a group of contemporary artists who paint, staple, create installations, or use silhouette cutting techniques to create their art. Their themes relate to space, time, and memory, such as the installations by Ulla Jokisalo and American Randal Thurston – or take up political questions like Sasha Huber and the South African William Kentridge.

Many of the works have been created on the spot, and spatiality is naturally one of their dimensions. The Elephant’s Breath, by the German artist Andreas Kocks, spreads through the exhibition space like a cloud, while his compatriot Heike Weber surrounds us in a dense thicket. Paper cut-outs by Katri Kuparinen and the collaborative work by Saara Ekström & Thom Wink depict nature – and the consequences of human actions.

Just before the exhibition opened, we were able to include silhouette art by the 13-year old Axel Gallén (1865−1931), later known as Akseli Gallen-Kallela, one of the leading artists of Finnish National Romanticism. The public has also had the possibility to submit their personal silhouettes to the exhibition.

ORNO − LIGHT AND FORM
– VALO JA MUOTO
15/5.−25/8.2019

The Orno factory became known as a manufacturer of high-quality design lighting. The designers created a modern lighting collection, that received attention through international exhibits and was awarded, among other things, at the 1950’s La Triennale di Milano. The lighting collections, created by Gunilla Jung, Lisa Johannes-Pape, Yki Nummi, and heikki Turunen, rose up to the challenges of the time.

The exhibition is a collaboration of the Kerava Museum and the Department of Design at Aalto University. It is seeking inspiration from Orno’s strong design tradition. Students from the Product and Form -course at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, have been given the task of designing lights, of which, finished prototypes will be produced for the exhibition. Design classics will be presented side by side with a new generations prototypes.

TOUCHED BY IMAGE
– KUVAN KOSKETUS
Rolando and Siv Pieraccini Collection
13/1.─5/5.2019

The awaited exhibition presented a selection of art from the extensive Rolando and Siv Pieraccini art collection, newly donated to the Kerava Art Museum. It includes almost 1600 artworks by 15 Finnish artists.

The focus is on printmaking, but the collection includes also paintings, drawings, and sketches for example by Rafael Wardi, Onni Oja and Veikko Vionoja. Artists Elina Luukanen, Inari Krohn, Esa Riippa and Hannu Hyrske along with Wardi are expecially well represented in the collection.

The Italian born Rolando Pieraccini has lived in Finland for over 40-years. He is a prominent art collector and earned his living as a publisher of art prints and literature. In addition to printmaking and art books he published Italian and Anglo-American literature, in particular.

Italy is well-known for its talented printmakers and drafters and Pierracini has worked to build connections between them and Finnish artists. He has also made Finnish art known in Italy and elsewhere in the world.

The collection could be characterized by the same words that Pieraccini used to describe the verses of a 20th Century Italian poetry collection he published: It is about works that are “full of light, wonderous sweetness, the joy of youth, and at the same time a humble and silent melancholy, which is characteristic for an age of disillusionment.”

In 2009, Rolando Pieraccini was awarded the Finnish Finnish Lion Commander’s badge for his extensive work for Finnish visual arts and culture.

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Contemporary art jumps down the rabbit hole

Kerava Art Museum’s autumn exhibition has borrowed its title from the children’s literary classic by Lewis Carroll. Its topsy-turvy world has retained its power from one decade to the next. It has birthed numerous versions through theatrical productions, radio plays and films. Surrealists that fled down the rabbit hole include: André Breton, René Magritte and Max Ernst. Salvador Dalì created his own illustrations for the book, as did Tove Jansson, the creator of the Moomins, decades later.

The artworks on show at the Art and Museum Centre Sinkka are not based on the book by Lewis Carroll, although it is referred to in some of the artworks. The artists look at the world like Alice; with a child-like curiosity and an amazed countenance. Taking the lead are small boys with big heads, girls growing into womanhood, mysteriously transformed forest creatures, survivors covered in moss, as well as princesses who decide their own fate.

Alice in Wonderland transports the viewer from the safe and familiar space of reality to the other side of perception. To a place, which we know exists, but which is sometimes hard to grasp. Fundamental questions of humanity are intertwined in this childhood dream world. They refer to physicality and the formation of a sense of self, the shared fate of humanity and nature, as well as limited time and the power of fantasy.

Kim Simonsson, Tommi Toija, the Rauma based Kerttu Horila and Tampere based Merja Haapala create ceramic sculptures that are both fragile and also hard on the surface. Mia Hamari combines ceramic elements with teeth, seal flippers and elk hooves. Her female figures made of birch bark and creatures sculpted from wood are hybrid entities that fall between the opposites. Hamari describes her work, “This is a family from my other reality, a world where humans and animals are part of the same universe. A world where a cat is a person. A person is made of wood, bone and wings. The wings take us to the past and the future, time gets stuck in the teeth of time and in the whiskers of a cat.”

As in fairy tales and fantasy literature, this exhibition brings forth archetypal images, which help us to understand ourselves and the society we live in. The paintings of Ilona Cutts, currently residing in Atlanta, and Emma Ainala are revelatory visions of the familiar, but still an odd scene through the looking glass, where the viewer has been able to peek. Themes of maturing into womanhood sieved through the lens of popular culture can be seen in Ainala’s work. Bubbling, beneath the enchanted surfaces of Cutt’s work is a query about the fate of the white rhinoceros and the boundaries of our perception.

It also appears that in the family of Saara Salmi, known for her New Victorian photographs, an old sketchbook from the 1800’s depicting long-eared creatures from Wonderland was preserved. Or that is at least what the artist tells. This sketchbook made its way to Finland with the help of a relative who worked as a kitchen assistant to the Dodgson family in Oxford. What makes this discovery interesting, is that that surname belonged to a certain mathematician, better known as Lewis Carroll.

This exhibition has been compiled by Curator Veikko Halmetoja and the Director of the Kerava Art Museum Arja Elovirta.

Over the course of this exhibition, a communal artwork will be created in the Museum project space. The artwork is created together with clients of the Kerava Job Centre and is directed and innovated by the artist Eliisa Sorvali.

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Pioneers of Naîve art
LOVE FOR COLOURFUL LIFE

28/4.-19/8.2018

This year marks the 30th anniversary of one of the main events for Naïve art in Finland, the Naїvists at Iittala summer exhibition. To celebrate, The Kerava Art Museum is highlighting some of the naïvist pioneers and seasoned artists, who let their hearts lead their brushes without a care for perspective or the opinions of others.

Naïvist art in Finland broke into the mainstream quite late on. The exhibition Images of the Nation (Kansan Kuvia) at Ateneum Art Museum in 1973, introduced Naïve art to the wider audience. The exhibition showcased work from the previous years Naïvist Art Triennial in Bratislava. This exhibition included the artists Håkan Brunberg, Alice Kaira and Pirkko Lepistö.

Andreas Alariesto’s exhibition at the Kunsthalle Helsinki in 1976 was also a significant milestone in the history of Finnish Naïvist art. In addition to Alariesto, artworks by second generation of naïvist artists Enni Idin from Padasjoki and Martti Innanen are exhibited on the lower level of the museum. Unlike many contemporary nativists their colour palettes are earthy, but the characters and stories within them are that much more colourful.

Naïvist art is not a clearcut style or movement, and not all of the artists who have taken part in Naïve art exhibitions are self-taught. For example Nikolai Lehto, Pirkko Lepistö and Alice Kaira have all attended art schools. Many, however, have begun painting or found their style at a mature age. This exhibition has been compiled from the collections of several museums and some of the largest private Naïve art collections in Finland. Resembling its collectors, this exhibition is an fascinating glimpse into the near history of Naïve art in Finland.

The exhibition has been realised in collaboration with The Suomen Gallup Foundation.

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Echoes from the Past | Tokyo | Berlin | Kerava

27/1-15/4.2018

Echoes from the Past celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Kalevala Society’s project, The Artists’ Kalevala. Over the years, artists from different cultures have taken a closer look at the Finnish national epic Kalevala and commented on it.

The foundation for this exhibition comes from two shows debuted in 2017. Do you remember? compiled by Dr. Christine Nippe was displayed at the Finnish Institute in Berlin, and Universal Nature, curated by the Japanese Kenji Kubota was seen at the Sezon Art Gallery in Tokyo.

Artists based in Berlin approach the themes of cultural memory and identity in their own personal ways, taking critical distance to the national discourse. The Japanese examine the relationship between humans and nature, but most of all human nature; which stories and beliefs are we made of?

Returning from the first Artists’ Kalevala exhibition is the work Ilmarinen by Marjatta Tapiola, portraying Ilmarinen in grief over the loss of his wife. The Finnish artists reprise and reaffirm the themes of nature and memory – letting them resonate at the frequency of our present day.

The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Kalevala Society, the Finnish Institute in Japan and the Finnish Institute in Germany and it is part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 program. The exhibition also marks the beginning of the 20 Year Anniversary Celebrations of the Finnish Institute in Japan, the co-producer of the exhibition in Tokyo.

_{Image: Hideki Iinuma, Ilmatar, 2017}

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Along the highway – Kerava 100 years ago
11/11/2017 – 14/1/2018

Born on loam soil, Kerava at the time of Finland’s independence in 1917 was a small community on the side of the railroad, a countryside building its first factories, shops, villas and other settlements.

Kerava Museum’s exhibition transports the viewer along the Old Highway past old settlements and the borough founded in 1924. The historic milieu also expands into Kerava city space to be read on mobile devices.
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For the Love of Freedom
5/8/2017 – 29/10/2017

A museum exhibition focusing solely on Graffiti Art has never before been organised in Finland – at least the graffiti writers feel overshadowed by Street Art and other forms of visual arts. Graffiti Art differs from Street Art in both tradition, attitude as well as through its aesthetic aims.

Letters are at the heart of graffiti, usually the writer’s or crew’s tag. Writers usually use marker pens or spray paint, which requires more skill and experience, as their materials. In Street Art the medium and materials change to suit the concept of the artwork. The letter-based images that spread out into the world from Philadelphia, New York and other major U.S. cities, has grown from the marking of territory to large-scale pieces, but still, their creators call themselves writers.

The exhibition For the Love of Freedom presents work from the international superstar MadC and about twenty front-runners of Finnish Graffiti Art. Visitors can also view a photographic journey into the history of Finnish graffiti. Stylistically the artworks move from the ‘old school’ influences, that arrived in Finland with hip hop, to abstract colour surfaces and glass sculptures which lean towards the post graffiti movement.

Lectures:
5.8. MadC | Claudia Walde: The Concept of Style (in English)
In Finnish:
13.9. Jouni Väänänen: Condemned buildings as the playing field for art and culture
27.9. Jani Tolin: The history of graffiti from the 1970’s to the present
4.10. Anssi Arte: Forms of Rocking – the established typefaces of graffiti

The lectures are arranged in collaboration with the Kerava Youth College.
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Green Land – Blooming City 1/4.–2/7.2017

For our forefathers living on the savannah greenery meant food, water and protection. Our cells “remember” this, even if we now live in cities. All of us need birdsong, flowering trees and life-bearing greenness. On the anniversary of our Finnish independence the Kerava Art Museum, through this exhibition, celebrates the good energy created by nature.

The exhibition includes plant installations, photographs, 3D-animation, moss walls and air purifying green design elements. In addition to top names in Finnish art, the exhibition includes part of, the Los Angelean artist, Jennifer Steinkamp’s dazzling Botanic-installation, which was seen spreading through the New York cityscape last spring. As the clock neared midnight in May 2016, all of the digital screens, in Times Square New York, were transformed into a pulsating sea of flowers.

Steinkamp’s work refers to a classification and human centric way of thinking present in the 1700’s, where nature was seen as a pantry for humans and a stimulant producer for the people. The developer of the plant and animal classification system Carl von Linné (1707─78) and his student, Pehr Kalm (1716─79) also known as the father of Finnish horticulture believed, that plants were intermediaries of divine providence. Plants grew in places where they could best benefit the health and well-being of people.

The interest in botany went hand in hand with the ”conquest of new continents”. Burgeoning kalmias and other plant species brought back to Finland from Pehr Kalm’s explorations, can be seen in Jan-Erik Andersson’s plant installation. In Salla Tykkä’s video artwork, beauty and colonisation become entwined. In the video a giant waterlily, which European explorer’s found in South America at the beginning of the 1800’s, blooms. The nightly spectacle of the blossoming, in the confines of a greenhouse, was first experienced in 1849. Its scientific name, Victoria amazonica, was given to the lily in honour of Queen Victoria.

Today, nature conservation is not justified by the well-being of humans, but with the well-being of nature. The German Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), widely regarded as the man who launched ecology and the creator of an exceptional series of lithographs depicting the art of nature, believed that humans with their culture and belief systems were an integral and indistinguishable part of nature, not its master, nor its servant. When sketching an image of the radiozoa, Haeckel considered the movement of his hand to be a kin to the movement of the protozoa.

The exhibition is accompanied by the publishing of Maahenki’s book, Vihreä päänsärky (Green Headache), where the renowned selection of writers ponder the relationship between nature, humans and art, as well as introduce green art as a new concept. According to professor Yrjö Sepänmaa the use of live plants is one of the hallmarks of green art. The used material is alive or at least organic like plants, but he points out, that plants can also be imitated with artificial flowers, trees and grass.

According to Sepänmaa green walls, green roofs and more widely green areas can also be considered green art. Taking part in the Kerava Art Museum exhibition are moss walls created by the Hyvinkää based Vihersisustus Luwasan (Green Interior Design Luwasan). Also on show are intelligent green walls that purify the air and bring nature inside, created by the Jyväskylä based Naava Ltd. Artist Hanna Husberg also considers this theme in her artwork The world indoors (2015). The plants used in her installation purify interior air and remind us that ” We are all breathers – from our first breath to the last.”

Mimicking the theme of the exhibition and the book Vihreä päänsärky (Green Headache) is the Blooming City Green Seminar (Viherseminaari Kukkiva kaupunki), which is being organised in the Keuda Aimo hall in Kerava on the 15th of June, 12.30–18. What is the city in 2050? Hear the latest visions and take part in the conversation.

_{Image: Jennifer Steinkamp, Botanic 2, 2016, digital animation (still image)}

Yarn Visions 26/11/2016 – 19/3/2017

Tanya Akhmetgalieva, Jenni Haili, Liisa Hietanen, Hyäryllistä-group, Rósa Sigrún Jónsdóttir, Elina Juopperi, Sanna Majander, Niina Mantsinen, Melek Mazici, Annukka Mikkola, OLEK & Michelle P. Dodson, Kaija Papu, Ulla Pohjola, Sonja Salomäki, Noora Schroderus, Suvi Solkio, Minna Soraluoma, Daina Taimina, Tuija Teiska, Timo Tähkänen, Sanni Weckman

The Yarn Visions exhibition focuses on knitted, crocheted, tufted and embroidered works of art. Contemporary artists generate new spirit into old handicraft traditions. One of the most famous artists in the exhibition is New York based Olek (Agata Oleksiak, b. 1978). Together with refugees, immigrants and local women she wrapped a whole house with pink crochets in the centre of Kerava. Since the beginning of August Our Pink House has reminded of the importance of home, hope and dreams.

Other international artists are Russian Tanya Akhmetgalieva (b. 1983), Icelandic Rósa Sigrún Jónsdóttir (b. 1962), and Latvian mathematician Daina Taimina (b. 1954) now holding a professorship at Cornell University. Taimina has crocheted hyperbolic forms to make geometric equations more understandable. The White cloud, carried out with the assistance of Latvian volunteers, is accompanied by beautiful pink forms crocheted by residents of Kerava.

Finnish artists also have a strong hold on yarn-based visual arts. Niina Mantsinen’s (b. 1986) graffiti rugs with bold, street art expression are accompanied by Kaija Papu’s (b. 1980) crocheted police car. Papu has searched material for her latest needlepoint works from the adult entertainment pages on the Internet under “romantic love”. Liisa Hietanen’s (b. 1981) impressive, near hyper-realistic “Villagers” blend in with the public. Her portrayal of everyday commodities is striking.

The Yarn Visions exhibition includes a strong participatory aspect. After the completion of Our Pink House the capable hands of the volunteers have crocheted for Daina Taimina and created a harvest installation of yarn. Textile design students from the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences invite the audience to supplement their Baltic Sea installation and to raise marine pollution awareness.

The exhibition is curated by Doctor of Arts Minna Haveri.

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The Heikkilä Local History Museum

The museum demonstrates typical living conditions in the province from the mid- 19th centure up to the 1930s. The verdant Museum gardens are in strak contrast to the urban hustle and bustle of Kerava town centre and a reminder of the slow and self-sufficient lifestyle of the past centuries.

Heikkilä Local History Museum is open in the summer and for groups by appointment.
+ 358 40 318 4300 or sinkka(a)kerava.fi

Open in the summer 2023
28./6.–30./7.
Wed 12–17 | Thu–Sun 11–16
Kerava Day 18.6. open 10–16

Free admission

Heikkilän kotiseutumuseo
Heikkilä Local History Museum
Museopolku 1
04200 Kerava

Art and Museum Centre Sinkka