Romantic thought

2025
Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) gallery










photos by Tuure Leppänen

The being transitions from one state to another, gliding down the wall, back into the ground from which it was born. The being, now more of a region, spreads across the floor, growing itself several poles. They aid with navigation and serve as a reminder that regions, too, can be reborn. At the same time, at the back of the last room, romantic thoughts ring out about seeing oneself as a landscape.

The exhibition explores movements in which we become a landscape and movements in which we form ourselves from a landscape. Porous sandy areas, ceramic surfaces and multipolar bronze statues create the suggestion of a changing national landscape

National romanticism was a time when landscapes were used to find a shared national identity. Could new landscapes be used to shape new kinds of thoughts about what nationality might look like?


Exhibition mentioned in the Finnish media: Suomen Kuvalehti, Helsingin Sanomat