Magnetic north: why the art world is heading to Helsinki

In March, Finland was named the happiest the country on earth for the sixth consecutive year, according to the UN’s World Happiness Report. A number of factors have been cited to explain this, from the Finnish welfare state, and the nation’s strong connection with nature, to frequent saunas.

Another factor is investment in arts and culture, with a view to making them — in the words of Jan Vapaavuori, mayor of Helsinki from 2017 to 2021 — ‘as accessible as possible to as broad an audience as possible’.

This summer sees the second edition of the Helsinki Biennial. Free to visit, it features work by 29 artists or collectives, some of which will be exhibited on the mainland but the majority on the island of Vallisaari in the Helsinki archipelago, a short ferry ride from Finland’s capital.

Previously used as a military base, Vallisaari was abandoned during the 20th century and only reopened to the public in 2016. The art can be found on a marked trail amid the island’s natural greenery, as well as inside erstwhile bunkers and gunpowder cellars.

Tuula Närhinen’s installation The Plastic Horizon  is one of several works with an environmental theme. It consists of a 20-metre-long channel of plastic debris picked up by the artist on Helsinki’s shores. Närhinen has divided it into sections of different colours, making for a work that is as eye-catching as it is alarming.

The biennial as a whole has a focus on sustainability. It has even employed an environmental coordinator, whose job it is to ensure that the biodiversity of Vallisaari isn’t compromised. (The island is home to more than 100 endangered or near-threatened species of butterfly, and large tracts of it remain out of bounds.)

Most visitors will complete the biennial trail in two or three agreeable hours. They are asked to be mindful of Vallisaari’s military past, however. Signs say that in the unlikely event of finding ‘an explosive or something which looks like an explosive in the ground, please do not touch it, and call 112’.

For the Helsinki Biennial’s curator, Joasia Krysa, who is UK-based, the Finnish capital has been a fascinating place to spend time. ‘So many interesting things are happening here,’ she says.

In the geopolitical sphere, a crucial development has been Finland’s becoming a member of NATO in April 2023. Krysa, however, is referring specifically to the capital’s cultural scene, which saw the opening of the Helsinki Music Centre in 2011; the Amos Rex art museum annex and refurbishment in 2018; and Oodi, a gargantuan new library located opposite the Finnish Parliament the same year.

The Ateneum Art Museum has also just reopened its doors after a year-long closure for refurbishment. Part of the Finnish National Gallery, the Ateneum has many claims to fame — which include being one of the world’s first museums to own a painting by Vincent van Gogh (it acquired his Street in Auvers-sur-Oise  in 1903).

It also boasts a rich collection of Finnish art, stretching from the 1700s into the Modernist era. Perennial favourites are works from the 19th-century movement known as Romantic Nationalism, the artists connected to which expressed patriotic yearnings at a time when Finland was still part of the Russian Empire.

One such artist was Albert Edelfelt, currently the subject of a retrospective on the Ateneum’s top floor. The show includes a number of works described by its organisers as ‘Finnish national treasures’ — such as Boys Playing on the Shore (1884) and Women of Ruokolahti on the Church Hill (1887). Edelfelt died in 1905, a dozen years before Finland declared its independence.

‘For a city to stand out nowadays, it has to profile itself in some way,’ says the Ateneum’s director, Marja Sakari, ‘and there’s no doubt that Helsinki has looked to profile itself in recent years as a place of culture.’

The city’s other attractions include Kiasma, a five-floor contemporary art museum (also part of the Finnish National Gallery) that reopened in the spring of 2022 after a two-year renovation and is currently hosting a major exhibition devoted to Tom of Finland (aka Touko Valio Laaksonen). Tom’s imagery of gay men proudly enjoying their sexuality challenged public taboos — and, in some cases, laws — against homosexuality after the Second World War.

A Museum of Design and Architecture is also set to open in Helsinki’s South Harbour in 2026, as part of an 83,000-square-metre redevelopment aimed at converting the area — currently used for port operations — into a ‘waterfront cultural destination’. The new museum will entail the merger of two existing institutions: the Design Museum and the Museum of Finnish Architecture.

Interestingly, South Harbour is the same part of Helsinki where a £110-million outpost of the Guggenheim museum was once planned. That idea was first floated in 2011 but was ultimately rejected by city councillors after five years of heated debates and negotiations.

‘I think the whole process was actually quite healthy for the city in the end, even if it didn’t seem so at the time,’ says Mari Männistö, culture director for the City of Helsinki. ‘It gave us the chance to reflect on what sort of place we want to be, and what role we want arts and culture to play here.’

Part of the reason for the plan being shelved was the belief that Helsinki would benefit more from home-grown institutions rooted in Finnish sensibility — of which the proposed Museum of Design and Architecture is a good example.

It straddles two fields in which the Finns have long excelled: think of names such as Iittala, Marimekko and Alvar Aalto. Precise details of the museum’s funding have yet to be announced, but — in an arrangement that is fairly typical here — the money will come from a combination of the City of Helsinki, the state of Finland and various private sources.

Männistö is keen to point out, however, that impressive museums aren’t the most important aspects of culture in Helsinki. They are more like the baubles on a Christmas tree.

‘We see the arts as a key enabler of a good life,’ she says. ‘We want them to have a long-lasting impact on the happiness of the citizens of Helsinki, from toddlers to retirees.’

A few initiatives are worth mentioning in this regard. First, the Finnish state’s Percent for Art policy, which demands that one per cent of the construction budget for new public buildings be spent on art.

Second, the Finnish public are granted unlimited access to national museums if they spend €76 on a Museum Card. This lasts for a year and is partly subsidised by the state.

The City of Helsinki has also introduced a programme known as Culture Kids, through which all young children are invited to two free cultural events a year, tailored according to their age.

The aforementioned Amos Rex gallery, meanwhile, hosts a triennial exhibition called Generation, in which budding artists aged between 15 and 23 are asked to submit works reflecting the state of the world today. This year’s edition features pieces by 50 contributors chosen from more than 1,000 submissions.

All of which is to say that there’s plenty to enjoy in Helsinki this year — for visitors and locals alike.

The 2023 Helsinki Biennial, New Directions May Emerge, runs until 17 September on Vallisaari island and until 22 October at HAM Helsinki Art Museum and various other locations