Brief Encounters
Veronica Simpson visits Helsinki Design Week and takes us through some of what the Finnish capital has to offer
THE FILM is Arkhipelagos (Navigating the Tides of Time) by IC-98, and was first shown in 2013 at the 55th Venice Art Biennale. The stark simplicity of animator Markus Lepistö’s style is bold. Bolder still is the idea of showing such a powerful piece of anti-consumerist art in a place set up to sell things. But this is no ordinary store, and no ordinary setting. This is a new concept by Glasshouse Helsinki, originally a forum for mentoring and supporting new artists and designers, founded by Mirkku Kullberg, to fill a perceived gap. Kullberg is now addressing another important gap: between emerging artists, artisans, designers and customers. And she has responded with this new retail, art and cultural space, championing ‘responsible growth’, taking advantage of an empty art nouveau department store (by Finnish architect Selim A Lindqvist).
The first floor offers us the art: the aforementioned film, some prints, an exhibit about printmaking, weird and wonderful fine art glass, an interior igloo woven from reeds. It also includes a special ‘round table’ area for designer/ maker discussions on issues of culture and sustainability. The ground floor atrium hosts an exhibition by students of Aalto University, exploring what sustainability means in terms of today’s manufacturing, construction and materials. Then arranged around what would have been the department store’s premium street-facing retail spaces is a fine collection of locally made, enduringly appealing artisan products, from traditionally woven rugs and linen tea-towels through jewellery to beeswax candles, all of which have been assembled by photographer Katja Hagelstam, founder of Lokal Gallery, whose mission in her exhibitions as well as this shop, dubbed Lokal Aleksi, is to preserve craft skills, breathe new life into traditional techniques and nurture a new consumer mindset of buying for the long term, consuming with a conscience.
Alicja Kwade’s spherical rocks, placed around the shore for the Helsinki Art Biennial
It’s OK to want new things – to want nice things – is the message. As long as you are making an investment in something that supports your local creative ecology and economy and brings you lasting pleasure.
I have always been impressed by the Finns’ knowledge and appreciation of their 20th-century design legacies and legends – from Aino and Alvar Aalto (whose home and studio is always worth a pilgrimage) to brands that have made their mark on every Finnish house – such as Iittala. And Helsinki’s Design Museum had just unveiled a whole exhibition dedicated to this iconic glassware manufacturer, celebrating its inspirations (nature), its evolution and collaborations with designers (Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s being my favourite). Iittala still makes all its glassware in Finland, I’m assured by our guide, though now it is owned by Finnish company Fiskars (famous for its scissors), as are the equally iconic Finnish ceramic brand, Arabia, and even the UK’s own Wedgewood and Ireland’s Waterford crystal, not to mention Royal Copenhagen; how one company supports diverse brand legacies and identities without sacrificing that local flavour is a conversation for another Design Week, perhaps.
Jaakko Niemelä’s 6m-high red danger line on a scaffolding structure, featured at the first Helsinki Art Biennial set on Vallisaari island
‘We need a balance between global and local,’ says Anni Korkman, Helsinki Design Week (HDW) programme director who has been involved since her father, Karl Korkmann, launched this initiative in 2005. Their global perspective applies to sharing wisdom and inspiration with other design weeks, and supporting best practice on sustainability as well as other fronts. As for the local, she says: ‘We feel in Helsinki the same thing that inspired us in the first place is true: there is so much potential here. There are so many stories we are not telling and that is what inspires us every year.’ For her, the purpose of a good design fair is design literacy. ‘If people understand the value of good design, and know what good design looks like – in art, in homes, in buildings – then they can make better choices and participate in the debate.’
To that end, HDW supports year round engagement through a weekly newsletter, ongoing design education activities, a radio show and podcast. The city of Helsinki wants to foster a programme of lifelong learning, says Korkmann: ‘We keep these skills developing. That means there is an early years education strand – Children’s Design Week.’
Creativity and a love of nature are very much part of the Finnish design DNA. Both are very much in evidence at Littow Architectes’ Majamaja cabin, an entirely portable, self-sustaining, off-grid cabin for three that you can ship easily by boat or car to your chosen destination. Currently hired out at around €300 a night, they hope to have a little village of such cabins set up by summer 2022, sprinkled around the remote spot where we visit the prototype, reached by a small ferry expert at navigating around the thousands of little islands that make up the Helsinki archipelago.
Speaking of islands, the icing on the HDW cake this year was surely being able to visit the first Helsinki Art Biennial, set on Vallisaari island – formerly occupied by the Russian military, and only opened up to the public in 2016. Its themes are very much about our stewardship of this planet – what we have done so far and how we can do it better. It promised to be the most carbon neutral art festival ever, and even had its own environmental sustainability consultant. The 41 artists selected responded to these issues or to the history or nature of this semi-wild site. Much of the art is Finnish. Highlights included Jaakko Niemelä’s 6m-high, red danger line hovering on a scaffolding structure at the end of a jetty – a marker for the worst case scenario sea levels – to cylinders formed of mushroom spores that gave voice to rotting trees. But my favourite was Alicja Kwade’s beautiful spherical rocks, placed around the shore to remind us that the same geometric structures are found everywhere, from atoms to galaxies. After this rich smorgasbord of art, design, culture and invention, did an answer to this year’s HDW question emerge? In part, yes – in that it reinforced the need to take time to value what we already have. As the writer Catherine Rendell once said: ‘Pay loving attention to the world. We owe the world our ferocious attention; to fail at that would be the true fail.’
