Institut Finlandais: Listen to the Forest that Grows
The group exhibition Listen to the Forest that Grows, the most recent collaboration between Institut finlandais and Katja Hagelstam of Lokal Gallery, presents a selection of artworks, craftsmanship, and design. This first season celebrates the blooming of spring and the reawakening of nature after winter hibernation, featuring bird photographs of unusual beauty by Sanna Kannisto, the Luonnon Suojelija (Nature Conservationist) sculptures by Katy Hertell along with a selection of everyday objects sustainably handcrafted in Finland from wood, ceramic or glass.
Exhibition open 26 April – 30 July 2022
Institut Finlandais: Listen to the Forest that Grows
The group exhibition Listen to the Forest that Grows, the most recent collaboration between Institut finlandais and Katja Hagelstam of Lokal Gallery, presents a selection of artworks, craftsmanship, and design. This first season celebrates the blooming of spring and the reawakening of nature after winter hibernation, featuring bird photographs of unusual beauty by Sanna Kannisto, the Luonnon Suojelija (Nature Conservationist) sculptures by Katy Hertell along with a selection of everyday objects sustainably handcrafted in Finland from wood, ceramic or glass.
Exhibition open 26 April – 30 July 2022
Recreating the intimacy of a home, the exhibition creates a dialogue between the artwork and everyday objects in the unique space designed by Juhani Pallasmaa, entirely renovated by Pekka Littow’s architect practice (Littow Architects) and decorated by Studio Joanna Laajisto in 2018. Thus, Melissa Sammalvaara’s tapestry, specially commissioned by Institut finlandais, decorates the wall of the café, the birds photographed with Sanna Kannisto’s meticulous eye take over the walls of the gallery and the handcrafted objects are both displayed on the shelves of the gallery and integrated to the daily activity of the café in order to immerse visitors in the beauty of everyday life.
Completed by temporary pieces, the exhibition is completed with pieces from the Lokal Kollektion, a selection of handcrafted objects designed and made exclusively for the Lokal gallery in Helsinki on the initiative of its founder Katja Hagelstam.
This collection was inspired by the wish to share Finnish contemporary art and craftsmanship in France, and to support, in a more permanent way, the designers and creators working in Finland. Through this new curatorial proposal, Institut finlandais also wishes to slow down its exhibition cycle and inaugurate a new, more organic, flexible and sustainable way of developing the program.
Presenting the following artists:
Saija Halko
Antrei Hartikainen
Katy Hertell
Renata Jakowleff
Sanna Kannisto
Leena Kouhia
Veera Kulju
Hanna-Kaisa Korolainen
Nathalie Lautenbacher
Linda Laitinen
Maija Puoskari
Melissa Sammalvaara
Eva Spoof
Yoshimasa Yamada
Explore: Lokal Events
Lokal Gallery at USVA House
08–09/2025, Kontiolahti
Lokal’s curator Katja and interior architect Hanni were commissioned by Ulla-Maari Koivula in the spring of this year to conjure up even more harmony, beauty and art in the Usva house in Kontiolahti | Arni Aromaa, Jaea Chang, Sasha Huber, Pasi Eerik Karjula, Hanna-Kaisa Korolainen, Linda Linko, Outi Martikainen, Henna Nuutinen, Carlo Raymann, Anna Rikkinen & Milla Vaahtera.
Factory 2: Correspondences, Helsinki
2.–20.7.2025, Lokal
In this iteration of Correspondences at Lokal, the artists engage with nature through the work of their hands, allowing different experiences of time and place to overlap and intertwine within a shared space. As they quietly respond to one another—through gazes, gestures, and unspoken dialogue—the exhibition becomes a momentary commune, where enduring relationships from distant places gather briefly and tenderly.
SOMMARSTILLEBEN
15.6.–24.8.2025
This summer, Lokal makes an all-summer-long expedition to Billnäs, an old ironworks village to the West of Helsinki. Bringing beauty in the form of artwork, crafts and handmade homeware into a space which still starkly echoes its unique history, the Sommarstilleben exhibition is a celebration of Lokal’s core values. The still lifes are an ode to the magical, fleeting nature of the Nordic summer. The abundance consists of works in various mediums and materials, in varying scale and subject, by a number of Finnish and Finland-based contemporary artists and artisans.
Institut finlandais: Almost All the Flowers in My Mother’s Garden
Lokal x Almost All the Flowers in My Mother’s Garden marks the return of a collaboration between Lokal Gallery and Institut Finlandais. Discover a new selection of handmade art and design pieces curated in dialogue with Hilla Kurki’s photography exhibition at Institut finlandais 12.4.–2.8.2025.