EXHIBITIONS

Ramina Habibollah (b. 1992, lives and works in Espoo) is a multidisciplinary artist born in Tehran. In her works, Ramina often combines and layers transparent, iridescent, and porous materials. By doing so, she builds spaces that touch upon notions of ecology, feminism, and cyborg anthropology. She is interested in exploring alternative ways of co-existing with otherthan-human bodies and other dimensions.

Ramina is currently thinking about connections between deep space and deep sea. In Fiskars, she will present an adaptation of her mixed media installation Violent Universe (2018). The artwork is a letter to corals, to the deep sea, and to the galaxy we inhabit. The neon sign کیھان (pronounced kei-han) means ‘cosmos’ in Farsi. It is also the name of Iran’s main newspaper. While the word ‘universe’ might refer to a world of violence and chaos, to Ramina ‘cosmos’ stands for the idea of a well-ordered whole working under a mysterious order and principles of harmony.

Ramina collected the coral bones that are part of the installation on Kish Island on the Persian Gulf in 2013. “I didn’t know at the time that you aren’t supposed to take them from there. Even in their death they are an important part of the ecosystem. Maybe I will return them some day.” Ramina graduated from Art School MAA in Helsinki in 2017 (FI). Her artworks have been presented in Helsinki at HIAP Gallery Augusta; Third Space; Fascination for Biodiversity, Kivinokka as well as in Objekti 4, Espoo, and Gängeviertel, Hamburg (DE). Together with photographic artist Nayab Ikram, she also forms the curatorial duo in a way.

www.ramina.space

nabbteeri is a duo formed in 2008 by artists Janne Nabb and Maria Teeri (b. 1984 & 1985, live and work in Övermark, Finland), whose practice is characterized by the preconditions of working in changing locations. Their polymorphic works are compositions based on somewhat mess interactions and fusions between the artists and other things. Alongside borrowed, recycled, and remodelled surplus materials and objects, their stratified, mesh-like works include elements created with 3D modelling or other digital technologies. These often-ephemeral works change their form throughout long processes.

Recently the artists have been focusing on their encounters and dependencies on and with more-than-humans. In Fiskars, they will present Thinking of Invertebrates (2017), a 3D animation built around travel diary entries from a residency period in Serbia that are merged with digitally animated sequences. The spoken text and the visuals follow their own, occasionally joining paths. The animation gives a visual form to beings and processes ordinarily hidden from human sight. The daily encounters between humans, invertebrates, and other critters form the artwork’s recurring theme.

nabbteeri’s recent shows in Finland include exhibitions at EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Titanik gallery in Turku, Käsitekesä in Kokemäki, and Ärjä Island in Kajaani, among others. Internationally, they have been exhibiting in locations such as Palermo (IT), Inverness (GB), Lenzkirch (DE), Seoul (ASJC Art Sonje Center) (KR), and online. In 2019, nabbteeri participates in the Venice Biennale in the exhibition Weather Report: Forecasting Future, together with Ingela Ihrman and Ane Graff. The exhibition takes place in the Nordic Pavilion of Giardini and is curated by the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki.

www.nabbteeri.com

Marjolijn Dijkman (b. 1978, lives and works in Brussels) is an interdisciplinary artist who engages in research-based projects and artworks developed in relation to specific contexts, and initiatives such as Enough Room for Space, an interdependent art organization initiating experimental research projects and exhibitions. Marjolijn’s sustained interest lies in considering the foundations of how humans perceive and experience their surroundings – the conventions which underlie humans’ conceptions of the world and their determination to interfere with and to influence it.

Many of Marjolijn’s works problematize peoples’ reliance on institutionalized systems to assert the politics of assumed knowledge. Her works are based on facts and research but often brought into the realm of fiction, abstraction, and speculation. Ranging from photographic archives and films, to landscape interventions and sculptural works, Marjolijn’s practice concerns itself with fields such as futurology, history, museology, anthropology, human geography, cosmology, and ecology.

At the Threshing Shed, Marjolijn shows her immersive video installation Navigating Polarities (2018). It investigates the history of navigation and the natural forces of polarity and magnetism. Interested in the correlations between systems at different scales, from the quantum to the cosmic, Marjolijn explores how humans and animals alike synchronize and coordinate their behaviour and activities within the Earth’s inherent laws.

Marjolijn has had solo shows most recently at NOME Gallery, Berlin (DE), Munchmuseet, Oslo (NO) (Liquid Properties, with Toril Johannessen), fig-2 at the ICA Studio, London (UK), Onomatopee, Eindhoven (NL), IKON Gallery, Birmingham (UK), and the Berkeley Art Museum (US). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions such as the 9th Contour Biennale, Mechelen 2019 (BE), the 21st Biennale of Sydney 2018 (AU), Working for the Commons Casco Art Institute, Utrecht (NL), the 11th Shanghai Biennale 2016 (CN), the 7th Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre 2009 (BR), and the 8th Sharjah Biennial 2007 (AE).

www.marjolijndijkman.com

Lene Baadsvig Ørmen’s (b. 1984, lives and works in Oslo) sculptural practice resonates with anthropological research: the ideas and imagery of archaeology, prehistoric cultures, and religious rituals all feed her work. She is also interested in people’s urges to understand and influence each other and the ways people shape the environment they are part of. Lene’s works often oscillate between being two-dimensional reliefs and three-dimensional sculptures. With no direct reference to any defined point in time or concrete systems of meaning, they could be fragments from fictitious civilizations; they insist on existing within circular timelines and foster spaces between or beyond the past, the present, and possible futures. In recent years, Lene has been working with materials such as clay, concrete, aluminium, and bronze.

In the exhibition Beings with, Lene shows her recent series of aluminium sculptures at the Granary, with some surprise elements placed by the Fiskars river.

Lene’s recent solo exhibitions include Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo (NO), HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme (FI), UKS in Oslo (NO), and Kunsthall Stavanger (NO). She has participated in several group shows internationally and residency programmes at Residency Unlimited in New York (US) and HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme in Helsinki (FI).

www.lenebaadsvig.com

Leah Beeferman’s (b. 1982, lives and works in New York) digital prints, videos, sound pieces, and texts explore the relationships among observation and abstraction, natural and digital, physical and experiential.

In Fiskars, Leah will present a selection of digital prints on fabric from her series Measures, developed over long periods of time in Kilpisjärvi and Hyrynsalmi (Finland) and Rogaland (Norway). Leah combines her photographic documentation of each landscape with abstract, painterly digital marks – stand-ins for observations or perceptions. By presenting varied experiences and interpretations of these landscapes, the prints in the series gesture towards the question of what it means to measure.

Leah received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (2010) and a BA from Brown University (2004) and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant to Finland (2016–2017). She has had solo exhibitions at Rawson Projects, New York (US), and Sorbus, Helsinki (FI). Recent two-person or group exhibitions include Klaus von Nichtssagend, New York (US), the Anderson, Richmond (US), Studio 17, Stavanger (NO), Galaria Nara Roesler, São Paolo (BR), Bass & Reiner, San Francisco (US), Fridman Gallery, New York (US), and OK Corral, Copenhagen (DK). Leah has also participated in many residencies, including LMCC Workspace, New York (US), The Arctic Circle, Svalbard (NO), Mustarinda (FI), ArsBioarctica (FI), Digital Painting Atelier, OCAD, Toronto (CA), Sirius, Ireland (IE), and SIM, Reykjavik (IS). Publications include Triple Point, an artist book published by Lodret Vandret, Copenhagen.

www.leahbeeferman.com

Laura Põld’s (b. 1984, lives and works in Tallinn and Vienna) work deals with a situated and subjective sense of territory and place. She seeks to combine specific histories or qualities of a given location with her materially sensitive work. She prefers to practice within the domain of traditional artistic mediums such as clay and ceramic sculpture, textile, and painting, weaving them together with context-specific and interdisciplinary elements, often engaging also in various collaborative endeavours.

For the exhibition Beings with in Fiskars, Laura collaborates with Estonian poet Katrin Väli, whose writing often tackles the relationships between humans and other animals. On this occasion, Katrin’s poems focus on birds and avian life. She writes: “The world is full of life that is intriguing, beautiful, mysterious, or even ugly to the eyes of humans – but in all cases, this life is important, with value of its own, not just attributed by human beings. Creatures are valuable neither in relation to their similarity to humans, nor because of their potential use. They are worthy because they exist. I would like to know them as they are. Even humans themselves are feeling uncomfortable in the world they have shaped. For many other beings, this world is not livable, it is literally killing them. This cannot be tolerated.”

Laura studied ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts, painting at the University of Tartu, and sculptural conceptions and ceramics at the University of Art and Design Linz. She has had recent solo exhibitions at the Tartu Art Museum (EE), Ateliers Höherweg e. V. Düsseldorf (DE), Gallery Chemin Du Bonheur, Hokuto-Shi (JP), Gallery Hobusepea, Tallinn (EE), Galerie Ulrike Hrobsky Showroom for Young Art, Vienna (AT), and Kunstverein Bayreuth e.V., Kunstkabinett Altes Rathaus, Bayreuth (DE). Two-person and group presentations include Le Lieu Unique, Nantes (FR), Treignac Projet (FR), Maebashi Works, Gunma (JP), Galerie Ulrike Hrobsky, Vienna (AT), the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn (EKKM), Art Hall gallery, Tallinn (EE), and KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn (EE).

www.laurapold.co

Johannes Heldén (b. 1978, lives and works in Stockholm and New York) is a visual artist, writer, and musician. His interdisciplinary work deals with poetry, ecology, artificial intelligence, sentience, and narrative structures. His recent projects include the Encyclopedia AI (2015– 2018), New New Hampshire & Clouds (2017, for the Momentum biennial), and Astroecology (2016), which was published simultaneously in three languages and made into an interdisciplinary performance at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and a digital artwork published by Bonniers Konsthall. Johannes has also published four music albums, recently Takträdgårdar (OEI) and System (Irrlicht), and seven digital online works of poetry and visual art.

Science fiction and other imaginative methods for world-building are integral to Johannes’ multifaceted work. In Fiskars, he works on sounds and texts related to visiting distant planets. He will present a sound piece by the river as well as small diorama-like installations on the ground floor of the Granary.

Johannes has recently exhibited at the Desert X 2019 biennial, Coachella Valley (US), RIBOCA1 the Riga Biennial of Contemporary Art (LV), Moderna Museet in Stockholm (SE), the 9th Momentum biennial in Moss (NO), Roskilde Festival and Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen (DK), Kunsthall Trondheim (NO), ISEA in Vancouver (CA), Traces of Existence/the Jewish Museum in Stockholm (SE), Broken Dimanche in Berlin (DE), Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm (SE), Centre Pompidou in Paris (FR), Inspace in Edinburgh (GB), UB Center for the Arts Buffalo (US), the Fifth Moscow Biennale (RU), Upfor Portland (US), the Media Archaelogy Lab/University of Colorado (US), Volt in Bergen (NO), ICIDS Istanbul (TR), NIMK in Amsterdam (NL), Dome of Visions in Copenhagen (DK), and UKS in Oslo (NO), among others.

www.johanneshelden.com

Jaana Laakkonen (b.1985, lives and works in Helsinki) works with paint and wonders what it matters and means for art (and the world) to take seriously the inseparability of matter and meaning – as well as the entangledness of ontology, epistemology, and ethicology. Jaana has been considering how diverse non-human(ized) agencies, excluded by dualist ways of thinking, are (and could be) present in artistic practice and exhibitions. She continues to examine the presence of these agencies, and of unstable subject–object relations, with Karen Barad’s Agential Realism as her working companion.

Jaana, paint, loose-weave, gravity, polyamide etc. will present a new work at the Threshing Shed, Fiskars.

Jaana’s recent projects include If I Change Something, What is Being Moved, a group exhibition curated by the feminist curatorial duo nynnyt for Mustarinda, Hyrynsalmi (FI); Material (- Discoursive) Strangers Demanding for Better (Material-) Discourses! a text presented at Materiality of and in Performance research days at the Theater Academy, Helsinki (FI); Kindness, Hospitality, Idleness, a partly public working period at Asematila, Helsinki (FI); With/in a Box That Got Nearly Sealed – MY Dust My as part of the Entangling Matter and Meaning project and workshop; the exhibition Sharing a Room, a Water Bottle and Who Knows What? at Treignac Projet (FR); and the exhibition With Leftover Agencies with Barbara Knezevic at HIAP Helsinki (FI).

www.jaanalaakkonen.com

Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens (b. 1964 & 1976, live and work in Durham-Sud, Canada), have a collaborative practice that spans across multiple media, including sculpture, video, performance, and installation. Their work explores the affective qualities of language and materials, the political dimensions of abstraction and knowledge, and the connections between embodiment and resistance.

In Fiskars, Marilou and Richard present their ongoing work Anthology of Performance Pieces for Animals (2018– ). Drawing upon experiments conducted in laboratories by psychologists, biologists, ethologists, zoologists, and neuroscientists, the work explores the various settings imagined by scientists to test the cognitive abilities of animals. The work takes the form of small sculptures made of bamboo, string, and coloured gels, displayed inside glass vitrines. Presented alongside these constructions are short texts which read as instructions for performances. Through an emphasis on performance, the work asks what happens when animals involved in research are no longer depicted as passive objects but rather as active participants, as performers, who make sense of the situations in which they are placed.

Recently, Richard and Marilou have presented in solo exhibitions at Visningsrommet USF Gallery, Bergen (NO), Audian Gallery, SFU Galleries, Vancouver (CA), Jane Lombard Gallery, New York (US), the International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York (US), the Esker Foundation, Calgary (CA), VOX, Montreal (CA), and Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (US). They have participated in group exhibitions at Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (CA), the 2nd OFF-Biennale, Budapest (HU), the Ludwig Museum, Budapest (HU), the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (CA), the XIII Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (EC), the 14th Istanbul Biennial (TR), La Biennale de Montréal (CA), and the 10th Sharjah Biennial (AE).

www.ibghylemmens.com

Dramaturg Elina Minn (b.1984 Turku, live and work in Helsinki) practises undoing. In their current work they aim to create collective spaces for restful and playful states to emerge from. They are interested in the developmental movement patterns shared by humans and other animals, exploring the body as it is experienced and imagined. They work mainly with writing and performance.

On the 24th and 25th of August, at Lukaali, Elina develops a new version of their eco somatic gathering, Hydra. It is a shared speculative fiction of the future body, where participants can experience themselves as hybrids in the Hydra symbiont hatchery. The performance consists of bodywork including touch. Please register here.

Elina’s latest work is Äitini on alien – My mother is an Alien (Yle Radio 2018), a radio essay on compost, care, and multispecies mothering. In 2019 they are guiding the Somanauts body workshop series at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (FI). They also work as a dramaturg in Toxinosexofuturecummings (Ana Teo Ala-Ruona, Asbestos 2019) and Howl (Sonja Jokiniemi, Kiasma/STUK/Buda 2019). Elina works at the feminist co-working space Poimu in Vallila.

www.elinaminn.com

Dambi Kim (b. 1990, lives and works in Seoul) tries to deliver the serenity and transience of life through tea, incense, words, and sounds. Dambi was first introduced to the Way of Tea by playing a traditional Korean black zither. Philosophically, Sen no Rikyu’s wabi teaching caught her mind in an immense way. She simply wanted to put it into practice in her everyday life. Dambi fell in love with Chinese tea during her sojourn in Europe. She returned to Asia to learn more about Chinese tea and incense ceremonies. In 2018, her tea ceremonies were enjoyed in Berlin as part of the exhibition Immersion at Martin-Gropius-Bau.

For Fiskars, Dambi has been invited to host a limited number of small-scale tea ceremonies and incense-making workshops on 12–14 July. Please register here for these special events. Dambi is currently developing and teaching workshops, food experimentations, and contemporary rituals at her tea room in Seoul, offering a minimum of visual distractions and emphasising all the other senses of the human body.

www.dambikim.com

Candice Lin (b. 1979, lives and works in Los Angeles) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with installation, drawing, video, and living materials and processes, such as mould, mushrooms, bacteria, fermentation, and stains. Candice’s works often form fragile sculptural landscapes or leaking systems. Through her use of particular materials such as specific plants in her works, she investigates the entanglements and co-evolution of human and other-than human histories, as well as how the desire for certain raw materials and ingredients has shaped the historical and ongoing processes of colonization.

Candice’s work in the Fiskars Biennale, located in the Threshing Shed, is titled The slow erosion of a hard white body (Chinese water torture). It is an installation with a wooden structure, a disciplinary device used in 19th century prisons, which slowly wears away a block of unfired porcelain through a system of tubing in which a distillate from boiled plants is being brewed. Candice received her MFA in New Genres at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2004 and her double BA in Visual Arts and Art Semiotics at Brown University in 2001. Her recent solo exhibitions were at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago (US), Bétonsalon, Paris (FR), Portikus, Frankfurt (DE), and Gasworks, London (UK). Her work was included in recent group exhibitions and biennials at the Hammer Museum (2018), LA (US), the Taipei Biennial 2018, Post-Nature (TW), the Athens Biennale 2018, ANTI (GR), and Werkleitz 2018, Holen und Bringen (DE), as well as Moderna Museet, Stockholm (SE), the New Museum, New York (US), and Galeria Fortes Vilaca, Sao Paulo (BR).

www.ghebaly.com/work/candicelin/

Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980, lives and works in New York) works in sculpture, performance, dance, and whatever medium it takes to get her ideas across. In her installation/performance works, Aki moves and talks inside the careful arrangements of sculpturally altered objects, activating the bizarre emotions behind daily life. Her works appear in gallery spaces, theatre spaces, as well as in odd sites. She has collaborated with musicians, choreographers, mathematicians, and scholars. Aki likes food, and baked goods occasionally appear in her works.

In Fiskars, Aki will show her recent video work, Do Nut Diagram, at the top floor of the Granary building. This video, accompanied by a poem, was produced for the online magazine Triple Canopy’s Resentment Issue (Sep 2018).

Aki’s works have been shown at SculptureCenter, the Kitchen, Chocolate Factory Theater, the 2010 Whitney Biennial, Greater New York 2010 at MOMA PS1, New York (US); the National Museum of Art Osaka, the Yokohama Triennale 2008 (JP); the Gwangju Biennial 2012 (KR); the Shanghai Biennale 2016 (CN); the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 (IN); and numerous other international and US venues. She also teaches sculpture at Yale University.

www.akisasamoto.com

Tuomas Aleksander Laitinen (b. 1976, lives and works in Helsinki) is a visual artist and musician who works with moving image, sound, light, glass, chemical and microbial processes, as well as artificial intelligences to explore the entanglements of human and more-than-human coexistence. Tuomas composes situations and installations that inquire into the porous interconnectedness of language, body, and matter within morphing ecosystems. In recent years, he has been utilising porosity, both conceptually and as a method, as a kind of counterargument against binary thinking, where things are typically put into clearly defined, opposing categories.

In Fiskars, Tuomas will present a version of the multifaceted installation Dossier of Osmosis, originally commissioned for the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018). Through working with diverse biochemical processes, glass, ultrasonic sound, and different forms of language (both speculative and embodied), the work forms myriad layers, perspectives, and micronarratives. His works have appeared in the 21st Biennale of Sydney (AU), Amado Art Space Seoul (KR), ASJC Art Sonje Center (KR), the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (FI), the 7th Bucharest Biennale (RO), Helsinki Contemporary (FI), SADE LA (US), Galleria Sinne Helsinki (FI), Moving Image New York (US), EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art (FI), MOCA Shanghai (CN), and Cinemateca do MAM Rio de Janeiro (BR), among others.

www.tuomasalaitinen.com

Tove Storch’s (b. 1981, lives and works in Copenhagen) practice is informed by questions of how a sculpture exists and how it comes into being. Her work is structural and geometric, but at the same time it destabilizes the notion of detached minimal work through the use of contrasting, sensual, and perhaps sentimental materials. Paper and transparent fabric often substitute for solid plates or other more traditional building materials. Tove is interested in how something flat can be used to create something spatial. Thinking about the sculpture as a container full of something, she stacks layers of drawings or suspended prints on top of each other. The sculpture is shaped as if it were an archive or a closed book. This way the works become kind of X-rays of ‘objects’, instead of forms.

Tove works with horizontal surfaces as she sees a big difference between viewing an image on a table or on a wall. When a body arrives at a table, it enters a state more open to opportunities, attempts, errors. Instead of remaining mere spectators, the visitors’ bodies become an important part of the work.

For Beings with, Tove is planning to create a new horizontal sculpture by the Fiskars River. Tove studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2000–2007) (DK), Akademie der Bildende Künste Wien (2003–2004) (AT), and Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee (2005– 2006) (DE). She has exhibited widely in Denmark and internationally. Her works have been shown, for instance, at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (DK), Louisiana (DK), Viborg Kunsthal (DK), Gallery Nils Stærk, Copenhagen (DK), Malmö Konsthal (SE), KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn (EE), LACASAPARK (US), MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax (CA), CAM Gulbenkian, Lissabon (PT), Gallery Anita Schwartz, Rio De Janeiro (BR), MAM, Rio de Janeiro (BR), and the 4th Auckland Triennial, Auckland (NZ).

www.tovestorch.net

Alma Heikkilä’s (b. 1984, lives and works in Helsinki) painterly, sculptural, and spatial works materialize merged agential aspects of humans, non-humans, and infrastructures affected by the various dimensions of the global ecological crisis. Heikkilä is also the co-founder of the Mustarinda Association, whose goal is to promote the ecological rebuilding of society, the diversity of culture and nature, and the connection between art and science.

For the Threshing Shed at Fiskars, Alma prepares a new installation by fusing together diverse elements from her previous painting and sculptural installations. Instead of clearly defined categories, her works strive toward complexity, embodying subtle co-dependencies and the symbiotic nature of life.

Alma completed an MFA at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts (2009). This year, she has been working on a new commission for the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Kiasma Commission by Kordelin). In recent years, her work has been presented at Tensta Konsthall (SE), the Gwangju Biennale 2016 (KR), the Museum of Contemporary Art Estonia (EKKM) (EE),
the 14th Vilnius Painting Triennial (LT), the Norrköping Art Museum (SE), EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art (FI), and Gallery AMA, Helsinki (FI), among others.

www.almaheikkila.net

Louise Waite (b. 1988, lives and works in Malmö) uses sound, text, sculpture, and baking as tools to build her participatory installations. Louise starts her projects by carefully examining the context in question, and highlights their different spatial, social, and temporal layers. For Fiskars, she creates a version of her ongoing ‘baking a museum’ project, in which she explores the relationship between human-made buildings, bread, and ritual.

“Before I Die I Shall Bake a Cathedral”, the words by the Swedish poet Edith Södergran (1892–1923) from her poem Hope, gave the initial spark for Louise’s baking-based artistic endeavours. The poet writes about the rising dough and what a shame it is that she cannot bake a cathedral. Louise’s project plays with the actual possibilities of baking a building. She has been considering what buildings of power exist within the art communities of today that could be baked in the place of a cathedral. Should it be a museum, another type of art institution, the gallery, or perhaps the artist’s studio? What happens when you get to eat these buildings?

In Fiskars, Louise will bake small-scale sculptures using moulds created from selected architectural details of the Granary.

Louise has been exhibiting as an artist as well as curating events and shows both locally and internationally, at institutions such as Wellcome Collection (UK), the De Le Warr Pavilion (UK), and Göteborgs konsthall (SE). Louise holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Critical Practice from the University of Brighton (UK) as well as a degree in project management within culture from Kulturverkstan (SE). She is the founder and artistic director of Svenska In & Uttrycksbyrån, and currently also works as the interim director at Skånes konstförening.

www.louisewaite.se

Raimo Saarinen (b. 1984, lives and works in Helsinki) prefers to work with living plants and soil(humus and rock material). His sculptural work often scrutinizes the troubled Western conception of nature that considers everything as a resource, or something to be mastered.While Raimo is interested in letting go of the illusion of human control, his works tend to expose and highlight the violence inherent to Western views of the world. He continues to investigate how these kinds of ideas of nature have taken shape and to build awareness of their current ramifications to the inhabitants of Earth.

In Fiskars, Raimo will present a selection of works from his sculptural series Scenario. It consists of small-scale biotopes made with living plants, soil, and discarded artefacts. He has built these closed ecosystems inside tall glass tubes that have been tightly sealed with silicone and copper. He is interested in seeing how the works change over time and in the dynamic relationships formed by the different materials inside the sculptures.

Raimo graduated with an MFA and a BFA degree in sculpture from the University of the Arts Helsinki (2017, 2014), and he also holds a BA at Aalto University School of Art and Design, the Degree Programme in Ceramic and Glass Design. In recent years, his works have been exhibited widely in Finland. Currently, he is working on a new large-scale project as the recipient of the Lönnström Art Museum Commission 2019 (FI), preparing solo exhibitions for the Turku Art Museum Studio (FI) and the Finnish Cultural Institute in Stockholm (SE), and participating in several group exhibitions, such as the inaugural Fiskars Village Art & Design Biennale.

www.raimosaarinen.com

Harri Koskinen (born in 1970) has an uncompromising, bold design aesthetic that has gained him international renown since the early days of his career. Practicality, a spare style and a conceptual approach to product and spatial design are Koskinen’s trademarks. In 2009, Koskinen launched his first namesake collection, Harri Koskinen Works. In January 2012 Koskinen was appointed Design Director of the Iittala brand. Koskinen’s works have been on display in exhibitions around the world. He has been awarded several major design prizes, such as the Kaj Franck Design Prize (2014), the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize (2009), the Pro Finlandia Medal (2007) and the Compasso d’Oro prize (2004).

French-born industrial designer Thélonious Goupil lives and works in Milan. He graduated from Ensci-Les Ateliers in Paris with honours in 2016. He trained at Ransmeier Inc. and Jasper Morrison Ltd., which increased his sensitivity to ordinary things. The designer aims to create intuitive objects shaped by context, the way they are made, and the economy of the project. In addition, he is interested in the way objects relate to their surrounding environment, which sometimes leads him to design products dedicated to specific places. On the side of his practice he directs Collections Typologie, a publishing studio that develops books and exhibitions about objects and their shape, with Raphael Daufresne.

www.theloniousgoupil.com

Sosuke Nakabo was born in Kyoto in 1972. Sosuke graduated in Product Design from the Kyoto City University of Arts in 1998. He continued with postgraduate studies in Design Products at the Royal College of Art, from which he graduated in 2002. The designer has worked extensively with Panasonic, Muji, and Jasper Morrison. He opened his own office in Kyoto in 2010.

www.sosukenakabo.com

Wataru Kumano was born in Tokyo in 1980. In 2001 the designer moved to Finland to study Furniture Design at Lahti Polytechnic, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 2004. He gained a Master of Arts from Aalto University of Art and Design in Helsinki in 2008 after three years of studies. Since 2008 Wataru has been based in Japan designing for the Jasper Morrison Tokyo studio. He established his own studio, kumano, in 2011 and works on interior, furniture, and product design internationally. In 2013, he inaugurated the research and development for Japan Creative.

www.watarukumano.jp

Michael Marriott was born in London in 1963. Michael spent his childhood designing and making things. He has been working as a designer since 1993, the year he graduated with an MA in Furniture Distinction from the Royal College of Art in London. Although trained as a furniture designer, his practice has become much broader in scope, embracing the design of exhibitions, interiors, and products. Michael is known for making supremely well-detailed and highly functional objects, renowned for their keen and economical grace.

www.michaelmarriott.com

Simo Heikkilä, born in 1943, is an interior architect based in Korpilahti near Jyväskylä in Finland. Simo graduated from the Ateneum School of Applied Arts with a Diploma in Interior Architecture in 1967. He was immediately employed by Marimekko to design exhibitions and retail environments for the company. In 1988 the Central Arts Council of Finland awarded him a fifteen-year grant, which gave him the opportunity to exercise artistic freedom and participate actively in exhibitions. The designer’s works have been presented at a large number of personal and international exhibitions and museums worldwide. Since the 1970s, he has contributed significantly to furniture design both in Finland and abroad. In recent years he has held positions as the head of the Wood Studio and the professor of Furniture Design at Aalto University in Helsinki. Simo Heikkilä has been an important figure behind the international Alvar Aalto design seminars and has been awarded numerous prizes and awards.

www.periferiadesign.fi/simo-heikkila/

Michel Charlot is a Swiss industrial designer born in Lausanne (1984). After graduating from the Ecole Cantonale d‘Art de Lausanne (éc a l) in 2009, he worked for Jasper Morrison Ltd. In 2011, he set up his own practice, and started developing products for companies such as Vitra, Belux, and Kettal. He aims at creating intuitive products in a constant quest for efficiency in conception, production, and design. Since January 2013 he has been teaching industrial design at École Cantonal d‘Art de Lausanne (éc a l) in Switzerland and at the Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan.

www.michelcharlot.com

Portuguese-born Hugo Passos designs everyday objects and furniture that are familiar and enjoyable, both in form and use. After spending nine years in London, where he worked for Fredrikson Stallard, the Saatchi Gallery, and twentytwentyone, the designer turned his attention to his own projects and has since exhibited at Salone del Mobile, the London Design Festival, and the Stockholm Furniture Fair, among others. Hugo’s work is underpinned by a profound fascination with the human scale of everyday objects and a commitment to the principle that the resulting designs must “do what they are supposed to do”.

www.hugopassos.com

Jens Fager, born in 1979, is a Swedish designer. Jens graduated from Konstfack University in Stockholm in 2008 and founded the studio JENS FAGER AB. The designer has made an international impact, with exhibitions in London, Milan, and Stockholm.

“Everything is and will be different. The core of our philosophy is to treat every product honestly: to find its central function and reduce the product to its essence. We work with engineers, fabricators, specialists, and manufacturers to create functional and beautiful objects efficiently and sustainably. We strive to imbue every object with a sense of humour and poetry. Our field of work circles around everyday life, essential needs, and daily experiences. By challenging the producer and production in the industry, we endeavor to create something better. A product we are in need of, which in a natural way can last a long time.”

www.jensfager.se

Karin Widnäs was born in Helsinki in 1946. Karin graduated from the University of Art and Design in 1977. She has taken part in several exhibitions in Finland and abroad. The designer moved to the Fiskars Art and Design Village in 1994. She is one of the founding members of the local ONOMA organization. Karin has spent a significant part of her long artistic career designing and making architectural elements in ceramics. For Karin, an important starting point is the dialogue between architecture and the ceramic elements specifically designed for it. According to her, the right combination of clay, shape, and firing will create a harmonic final result. Karin Widnäs was given the highly respected Pro Finlandia medal in 2017.

www.karinwidnas.fi

Keiji Takeuchi was born in Fukuoka, Japan in 1977. He spent most of his youth in New Zealand where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Product Design. The designer worked for Naoto Fukasawa in Tokyo between 2005–2012, after which he moved to Milan to set up a satellite office for Fukasawa. Keiji established his own design office in Milan in 2015 in order to pursue his own beliefs. The designer is interested in interpreting a quality where a thing becomes more than just an object, but rather becomes an integral part of our life through our relationships.

www.keijitakeuchi.com

Klaus Hackl was born in Munich in 1967. After completing a Diploma in Product Design at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar, Klaus seized the opportunity to join the office of Jasper Morrison, and later worked with Konstantin Grcic. After having gained profound experience with some of the most inspiring figures and international companies, Klaus set up his office in Munich in 1999 and began to establish his idea of design. In all his activities, he aims for a better understanding of the historic and sociocultural contexts fundamental to the creation of objects and spaces, and a research-based design approach beneficial to both clients and society.

www.klaushackl.de

Maria Jeglinska was born in Fontainebleau, France in 1983. Maria graduated from the  Industrial Design course at École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (éc a l) in 2007 and was awarded a scholarship from the IKEA foundation. The scholarship led to her working for Galerie kreo in Paris, Konstantin Grcic in Munich, and Alexander Taylor in London. The designer works on a wide range of commissions: industrial, exhibition, and research-based design. Maria is convinced that in today’s world, research can trigger and generate new forms of answers and offers.

www.mariajeglinska.com

Martino Gamper was born in 1971 in Merano, Italy. Martino lives and works in London. Starting as an apprentice with a furniture maker in Merano, the designer went on to study sculpture under Michelangelo Pistoletto at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He completed a master’s degree in 2000 from the Royal College of Art in London, where he studied under Ron Arad.

Working across design and art venues, Martino engages in a variety of projects from exhibition design, interior design, one-off commissions and the design of
mass-produced products for the truly cutting edge of the international furniture industry.

www.martinogamper.com

Cecilie Manz is a Copenhagen-based designer, born in 1972 in Denmark.

After graduation from the design school Danmarks Designskole in Copenhagen in 1997 with additional studies at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Cecilie Manz founded her own studio in Copenhagen in 1998.

In addition to her work with industrial products, her experimental prototypes and more sculptural one-offs make up an important part of her work and approach:
“I view all my works as fragments of one big, ongoing story where the projects are often linked or related in terms of their idea, materials, and aesthetics, across time and function. Some objects remain experiments or sculpted ideas, others are made more concrete and turn into functional tools. My work has always revolved around simplicity, the process of working toward a pure, aesthetic object.”

www.ceciliemanz.com

Born in France in 1985, Julien Renault’s design process usually starts with an inspiration from his environment. The designer’s quality standards and sensibility have been moulded by his formation. Julien is a trained industrial designer and has graduated from the Product Design course at École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (éc a l) in 2009. The designer treasures the beauty found in everyday objects and the traces of manufacturing processes, hence his fascination for industrial standards. Their shape can create a spark in Julien’s mind and result in a new project.

Based in Brussels, Julienrenaultobjects is a multidisciplinary studio which develops design projects with Belgian and international companies and provides photography and creative direction for brands and designers.

www.julienrenaultobjects.com

Stafford Schmool (né Andrew Stafford, 1965) is a designer working in East London across a range of disciplines and collaborates regularly with long term clients and partners.

“My approach is not particularly commercial, nor unconventional, but my underlying principles hopefully result in work that is pragmatic, functional, and emotionally resonant. Whilst I have more than a passing interest in what things look like, I’m more concerned about whether things work properly and have integrity. This is becoming particularly apparent around architecture and the built environment, where I am often left wondering who wrote the brief and whether anyone ever read it. To this end I enjoy my long term work as a design consultant with architects AHMM and more recently Waugh Thistleton.”

Stafford Schmool has written about his collection of unusual objects called Queertools.

www.staffordschmool.com

www.queertools.org

Aino Michelsen was born in Helsinki. Her interest in furniture design started during a high school exchange in 2007 when she visited the Milan Furniture Fair for the first time. A year later she started bachelor’s studies at the Lahti Institute of Design and continued to studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, graduating with a Master of Arts in Furniture Design in 2017. Aino considers the design process to be a very social experience, always taking into close regard whom she is designing for, who the manufacturer is, and what kind of collaboration evolves during the process. Aino currently works as the lead designer for the Finnish furniture company Interface.

www.ainomichelsen.com