Kuvan Kevät 2025

About the exhibition

The annual exhibition Kuvan Kevät showcases the works by students completing their master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts. Students from all four subject areas participate in the exhibition: Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking and Time and Space Arts.

Kuvan Kevät 2025 exhibits the work of up to 46 fine arts students. The exhibition will be spread across the Kuva/Tila gallery, other floors of the Mylly building and outdoor spaces around the Sörnäinen campus. 

This year the diverse bodies of artistic work on show, relate to each other along themes that render the art object as: memento mori, gift, archaeological artifact, binary code, dystopian remnant, wayfinder, sacred and devotional offering, simulacrum, timekeeper, worm hole, fable, abjection, magic, and, finally, as dematerialised.

Academy of Fine Arts’ postdoctoral researcher and curator Nina Liebenberg oversees Kuvan Kevät 2025. Her curatorial practice tests how exhibition-making can promote the interaction of varied knowledges, generating outcomes that transcend any singular perspective.

Events

Exhibition opening

Exhibition opening on Friday 16 May from 5 to 9 pm.

Ellenor Rose Nish: Olen pilvi (I am a cloud)   

Fri 16.5., 18.20–19.00, Terrace
Sat 24.5., 14.40–15.00, Kuva/Tila

I am a Cloud is a dance performance that uses the imagination to become a cloud. What would it feel like to be a cloud? What does it mean to go slowly?  

Lola Barraud: Guided Experience: Entering the Heart 

Sat 24.05., 11.00 and 14.00 
Sun 01.06., 11.00 and 14.00
Sat 07.06., 11.00 and 14.00
Wed14.06., 11.00 and 14.00 

Venue: White studio. Duration: 45 min. Language: English. 

Please book a slot by email as the workshops are limited to 8 people per session: lola.barraud@outlook.com. The workshops are free of charge.   

Lola Barraud is offering a workshop in which the artist will guide a group through an experience of her soft installation: Back and Forth in Liquid Synchrony. The workshop will begin with a focus on each individual’s inner body rhythms. Participants will then take part in a heart synchronization exercise, in which they listen to another person’s heartbeat. The session will end with a group discussion of the experience. 

Ilia Ollikainen: Lecture Performance: Why medieval/fantasy?  

Sat 24.5. at 17.00   
Wed 28.5. at 18.00  
Fri 6.6. at 18.00  

Place: Mylly, K-317. Duration: 50 minutes. Language: English. The performance is free. Sign-up is required due to limited capacity. Full details and sign-up at https://iliaollikainen.hotglue.me/?WMFinfo/  

Why medieval/fantasy? narrates through the treacherous trudge of trying to understand present day medieval desires, and the multilayered obfuscation of the Middle Ages that has led to the rise of neo-medieval rhetoric and aesthetics of today. It is about grappling for the medieval history beyond the margins, about holding together an empty suit of armor. About pure mettle. 

Performance Day

On Saturday 24 May. More info coming up soon!

Guided tours

The coordinating teacher of Kuvan Kevät 2025, curator and post doc researcher Nina Liebenberg will host a guided tour in the exhibition on Wednesday 4 June at 4 pm. In English, no booking required.

Publication

The Kuvan Kevät 2025 catalogue brings together texts written by students of the Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Contemporary Art History and Theory at the Academy of Fine Arts which have emerged from discussion with the artists.

Exceptional opening times

Exhibition closed on Ascension Day, Thursday 29 May.