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

Performances, workshops, and guided tours will take place throughout the exhibition. Saturday, 24 May is our Shared Performance Day — a highlight of the program, with many events happening. You’re warmly invited to join us! All events are free of charge, though some may require pre-registration.

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

Guided tours

Wednesday 4 June at 16:00

The coordinating teacher of Kuvan Kevät 2025, curator and post doc researcher Nina Liebenberg will host a guided tour in the exhibition. The tour is held in English. No booking required. The tour starts from the ground floor of Mylly.

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

Friday 16 May at 18.20–19.00, Terrace
Saturday 24 May at 14.40–15.00, Kuva/Tila (Shared Performace Day)

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 

Saturday 24 May at 11.00 and 14.00 (Shared Performance Day)
Sunday 1 June at 11.00 and 14.00
Saturday 7 June at 11.00 and 14.00
Wednesday 14 June at 11.00 and 14.00 

The event takes place in the White studio. Duration around 45 min. The workshops are held in English. 

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

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?  

Saturday 24 May at 17.00 (Shared Performance Day)
Wednesday 28 May at 17.00  
Saturday 7 June at 17.00  

The event takes place in K-317, Mylly-building. Duration 50 minutes. Language of the event is English. Sign-up is required due to limited capacity. Read more details and instructions on how sign up for the event.

Why Medieval/Fantasy? is a lecture performance that narrates through the complicated process of trying to understand modern medieval desires, queer medieval history and the process of historical obfuscation that has led to the current rise of neo-medieval rhetoric and aesthetics. It’s about grappling to secure oneself a place in the past, about holding together an empty suit of armor. About pure mettle.

Performaces in the Kirpilä Art Collection

Sunday 8 June at 14:00–15:00

Duration approx. 35 minutes. Pre-registration is required: taidekoti@skr.fi

The performance art of master’s students from Kuvan Kevät will take over the Kirpilä Art Collection. Unique performances are spread across the rooms of the Kirpilä Art Collection, exploring themes of touch, friendship, and emotions embedded in the space—as well as what it might feel like to be a cloud, drifting slowly. The pieces are framed by electronic soundscapes, fragments of song, and intimate one-on-one encounters.

Artists and performances:
Jani Luoma & Veera Wahlroos: Touch 3
Helena Pulkkinen: Room Feels Like Metal
Ellenor Nish: I Am a Cloud

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. In the publication, the artists share their artistic thinking and working processes through selected objects that carry significance for them.

Exceptional opening times

Exhibition closed on Ascension Day, Thursday 29 May.