Kastehelmi Korpijaakko: A Comedy About a Meadow That Wanted to Own Itself
Not once have you thought that maybe I might want something too. And you know what? I want it like MAD.
– from Kuuleminen (Hearing), 2025
In Kastehelmi Korpijaakko’s exhibition, the voice is given to an undefined, fictional meadow. The artistic process behind A Comedy About a Meadow That Wanted to Own Itself began with an inheritance negotiation and became a journey into how humans form communities through ownership. At the same time, the exhibition reaches beyond human relations towards interspecies entanglements, asking how practices of ownership shape the ways we exist with one another.
The historical foundation of private ownership is built on the idea of progress. Those who made the most efficient use of land were seen as having earned the right to own it. In 18th-century Britain, as wool production became more efficient and commonly used pastures were enclosed, the words manure and improvement became synonymous.
What word describes progress in an age of collapsing habitats? How do we own, when we own? Can power be relinquished? What about responsibility? Is a boundary a threat or a form of protection? Korpijaakko explores ownership and the negotiations it entails through understated humour. The works, combining photography and text, contain proclamations, dialogues, exclamations, and assertions.
In the video piece Kuuleminen (Hearing), the meadow’s monologue, supported by visual evidence, reveals a strained relationship and an attempt to resolve imbalance through the drawing of boundaries. The title refers to Article 21 of the Finnish Constitution, which states that the right to be heard in one’s own matter is one of the legal safeguards protected by law. A risograph-printed publication accompanying the video work is available to visitors in the exhibition.
About the artist:
Kastehelmi Korpijaakko (b. 1984, Lohja) is a photographic artist based in Helsinki, working on Harakka Island. She graduated with a Master of Arts degree from the Photography programme at Aalto University in 2018. Korpijaakko’s works have been exhibited in solo shows at Huuto Gallery (2023) and Mältinranta Art Centre (2021), as well as in group exhibition at the Mänttä Art Festival in summer 2025. The body of work shown at Hippolyte continues in the Poriginal Gallery at Pori Art Museum in September 2025. During 2025, Korpijaakko has participated in residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in France, the Väinö Tanner Foundation residency in Italy, and the Sharing Grounds project at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York.
The artist’s work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), the Olga and Vilho Linnamo Foundation, and the Kone Foundation.
Yrjönkatu 8–10, 00120 HelsinkiFree entrance