Aini Alastalo, Milja Havas, Heli Juuti, Lorenzo Marotti, Santeri Mortti, Didi NG Wing Yin, Carlo Raymann, Eemeli Sahimaa: Kenen syy?

Kenen syy?

Kenen syy? brings together a group of artists connected by their use of wood as a material. The exhibition explores the possibilities of wood within contemporary and experimental artistic practice.

Working with wood is a physical and embodied process: the material resists, gives way, cracks, bends, reveals its grain, or leads the maker in an unexpected direction.

Working with it requires listening and presence – an ongoing negotiation between the maker’s intentions and the inherent qualities of the material. Those who work with wood often describe the process as grounding, even meditative: becoming absorbed in the act of making can alter the sense of time, focusing attention on the relationship between hand, tool and material. This physical and haptic dimension is also central to the experience of the exhibition. Wood invites us to look closely, to notice surface, weight, structure and traces – and to imagine the work that has taken place through the hands of the maker.

Kenen syy? refers to syy, the Finnish word for the grain of wood – its inner structure, which speaks of the material’s growth, the passage of time and movement. The grain is not merely a visible pattern, but a trace of something that has happened. The title also leads us to consider the relationship between material and maker: which one is guiding the other, and whose trace ultimately remains visible in the work?

Kenen syy? presents wood through diverse material investigations, techniques, forms and references. The works do not offer a single definition of what wood-based art can be, but instead open up different ways of considering the relationship between material, maker, artwork and space. Here, wood is not merely a means of creating a work, but a starting point for exploration, experimentation, dialogue and encounter.

Free entrance