What Does an Exhibition Do?
Course exhibition 13 March – 22 March, 2026. Come and witness art coming to life through live encounters!
About the Exhibition
The experimental exhibition What Does an Exhibition Do? explores pedagogical practices of presenting visual art from the perspectives of the artist, curator, exhibition organiser, artwork and the public. The exhibition unfolds as a process-based project that examines how exhibitions are constructed – and how the conventions surrounding them could be questioned or unlearned.
Through artworks, live performances and interactions with the gallery visitors, the exhibition invites the public to reflect on how exhibitions create meaning, how exhibition practices shape visitors’ experiences and what happens when familiar methods and strategies are dismantled.
“Art and art studies are about finding one’s place and reflecting on one’s practice, whereby the place and time of the event – and the very moment of making – become more defined. This dismantling of ways of doing, or unlearning, may lead away from what has been learned,” writes teacher on the course and lecturer in art pedagogy in higher education Marika Orenius in her doctoral dissertation Lived Spaces in the Work and Education of a Visual Artist.
The exhibition is part of a course led by Orenius, visual artist and doctoral researcher Timo Tähkänen and lecturer in acting Anu Koskinen. Guest teachers include art historian and university teacher Riikka Haapalainen and visual artist Iiri Poteri.
Exhibition contributors
Heidi Bäckström, Tapio Brotherus, Yoonsik Kim, Thomas Lavastre, Saara Lehtonen, Milla Risku and Maria Wesander.
Introduction of contributors
Heidi Backström is a curator, writer, and producer working in the field of performing and contemporary art. Regardless of their role, the recipient—the spectator, the participant, the reader—is always at the core of Heidi’s thinking. Heidi is writing their thesis for Master’s Programme in Curating and Writing in Contemporary Art, Praxis on slow art and on facilitation of slow watching. In this exhibition, Heidi invites visitors to spend time with the works by Kalle Leino and Outi Pieski, selected from the art collection of the Academy of Fine Arts.
Tapio Brotherus is a fine artist from Helsinki who is studying sculpture. His artworks deal with whatever happens to pop into his mind. Previously, he has done various casual jobs and enjoyed life to the fullest. Currently, Brotherus is striving for a more relaxed approach to his artistic work.
Yoonsik Kim (b. 1999) examines in his work the internalized manifestations of collective consciousness through the experience of lack, prohibition, and image. His research focuses on how meanings momentarily open beyond themselves: the image is delayed, the gaze turns back upon itself, and the object loses its self-evidence. Kim is a bachelor’s student in time and space department and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the fashion program at Aalto University in 2022.
Thomas Lavastre is a Helsinki-based painter whose residency at KuvaTila transforms the gallery into an open studio. Working in oils, he paints figurative works through a live process in which the audience encounters the uncertainty and decision-making involved in making art in real time. During his two-week residency at KuvaTila, he opens this process to the public, allowing the tension between the finished and the unfinished to build visibly day by day. The act of painting becomes both a performance and a pedagogical intervention.
Saara Lehtonen is a BA student in the Contemporary Art Theory and History programme. Previously, Saara has engaged with visual art primarily through making. Saara is interested in what one is allowed to do in an exhibition space and how one can act within it: where does the boundary between performance and presence lie? Their other interests include digital art, art mediation and curating, the study of internet culture, and philosophy. In this work, Saara explores how one can and is allowed to be in an exhibition. Are there established ways of inhabiting the space? What can the exhibition space be used for, and how can one take up space within it? Visitors may also ask Saara for a guided tour to the exhibition space.
Milla Risku is a Master’s student in Theatre Pedagogy at the Theatre Academy with an interest in art history. She is a visual theatre artist who creates sets, props, costumes and music for her performances and loves performing. Milla is interested in exploring how multidisciplinary work functions as a tool for creative expression and pedagogy, and how it can open doors to participation and encounters. The What Does an Exhibition Do? exhibition features a video work that is part of Milla’s artistic thesis. In the video, she carries a large Cöleur magnifique tube around the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and examines the reactions of public urban space to the atypical object, as well as its impact on her own thinking. In addition, the exhibition features two different versions of the Cöleur magnifique tube. Viewers are invited to find their own meanings in carrying a flat paint tube and transporting shopping carts equipped with the tube in the exhibition space.
A selection of paintings by Ella Adolfsson, a painting student in the Bachelor’s Programme in Fine Arts, is presented in the exhibition space by Maria Wesander, a student in the Bachelor’s Programme in Contemporary Art History and Theory. Through the display, Wesander asks how the information made available to exhibition visitors, together with the selection of works, influences the interpretation of the artworks, the amount of time spent with them, and the perception of the exhibited artist’s practice – and what these choices may reveal about the exhibitor. She aims to communicate that a visitor’s experience of art is shaped, among other things, by the information a curator chooses to provide or omit, the language and visual form through which it is presented, as well as by the visitor’s own agency, identity, and prior knowledge. What happens when the text is altered or removed from the exhibition space? How does reading this text affect your experience?
Events
Exhibition opening
Exhibition opening reception Thursday 12 March 2026, 17–19.
Live encounters in the exhibition
- At the exhibition opening on Thursday, 12 March, 5.00–7.00 pm
- At the end of the Kalasatama Art Walk on Sunday, 15 March, at approximately 3.15 pm
(The Kalasatama Art Walk takes place on Sunday, 15 March 2026 at 2.00 pm and lasts approximately 1.5 hours.) - On Thursday, 19 March at 3.00 pm
- Milla Risku, the artist behind the Cöleur magnifique piece, will organize a tube lottery on the last day of the exhibition on Sunday, 22 March, 4:30-5:30 pm. Every lottery ticket wins!
About the Exhibition
The experimental exhibition What Does an Exhibition Do? explores pedagogical practices of presenting visual art from the perspectives of the artist, curator, exhibition organiser, artwork and the public. The exhibition unfolds as a process-based project that examines how exhibitions are constructed – and how the conventions surrounding them could be questioned or unlearned.
Through artworks, live performances and interactions with the gallery visitors, the exhibition invites the public to reflect on how exhibitions create meaning, how exhibition practices shape visitors’ experiences and what happens when familiar methods and strategies are dismantled.
“Art and art studies are about finding one’s place and reflecting on one’s practice, whereby the place and time of the event – and the very moment of making – become more defined. This dismantling of ways of doing, or unlearning, may lead away from what has been learned,” writes teacher on the course and lecturer in art pedagogy in higher education Marika Orenius in her doctoral dissertation Lived Spaces in the Work and Education of a Visual Artist.
The exhibition is part of a course led by Orenius, visual artist and doctoral researcher Timo Tähkänen and lecturer in acting Anu Koskinen. Guest teachers include art historian and university teacher Riikka Haapalainen and visual artist Iiri Poteri.
Exhibition contributors
Heidi Bäckström, Tapio Brotherus, Yoonsik Kim, Thomas Lavastre, Saara Lehtonen, Milla Risku and Maria Wesander.
Introduction of contributors
Heidi Backström is a curator, writer, and producer working in the field of performing and contemporary art. Regardless of their role, the recipient—the spectator, the participant, the reader—is always at the core of Heidi’s thinking. Heidi is writing their thesis for Master’s Programme in Curating and Writing in Contemporary Art, Praxis on slow art and on facilitation of slow watching. In this exhibition, Heidi invites visitors to spend time with the works by Kalle Leino and Outi Pieski, selected from the art collection of the Academy of Fine Arts.
Tapio Brotherus is a fine artist from Helsinki who is studying sculpture. His artworks deal with whatever happens to pop into his mind. Previously, he has done various casual jobs and enjoyed life to the fullest. Currently, Brotherus is striving for a more relaxed approach to his artistic work.
Yoonsik Kim (b. 1999) examines in his work the internalized manifestations of collective consciousness through the experience of lack, prohibition, and image. His research focuses on how meanings momentarily open beyond themselves: the image is delayed, the gaze turns back upon itself, and the object loses its self-evidence. Kim is a bachelor’s student in time and space department and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the fashion program at Aalto University in 2022.
Thomas Lavastre is a Helsinki-based painter whose residency at KuvaTila transforms the gallery into an open studio. Working in oils, he paints figurative works through a live process in which the audience encounters the uncertainty and decision-making involved in making art in real time. During his two-week residency at KuvaTila, he opens this process to the public, allowing the tension between the finished and the unfinished to build visibly day by day. The act of painting becomes both a performance and a pedagogical intervention.
Saara Lehtonen is a BA student in the Contemporary Art Theory and History programme. Previously, Saara has engaged with visual art primarily through making. Saara is interested in what one is allowed to do in an exhibition space and how one can act within it: where does the boundary between performance and presence lie? Their other interests include digital art, art mediation and curating, the study of internet culture, and philosophy. In this work, Saara explores how one can and is allowed to be in an exhibition. Are there established ways of inhabiting the space? What can the exhibition space be used for, and how can one take up space within it? Visitors may also ask Saara for a guided tour to the exhibition space.
Milla Risku is a Master’s student in Theatre Pedagogy at the Theatre Academy with an interest in art history. She is a visual theatre artist who creates sets, props, costumes and music for her performances and loves performing. Milla is interested in exploring how multidisciplinary work functions as a tool for creative expression and pedagogy, and how it can open doors to participation and encounters. The What Does an Exhibition Do? exhibition features a video work that is part of Milla’s artistic thesis. In the video, she carries a large Cöleur magnifique tube around the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and examines the reactions of public urban space to the atypical object, as well as its impact on her own thinking. In addition, the exhibition features two different versions of the Cöleur magnifique tube. Viewers are invited to find their own meanings in carrying a flat paint tube and transporting shopping carts equipped with the tube in the exhibition space.
A selection of paintings by Ella Adolfsson, a painting student in the Bachelor’s Programme in Fine Arts, is presented in the exhibition space by Maria Wesander, a student in the Bachelor’s Programme in Contemporary Art History and Theory. Through the display, Wesander asks how the information made available to exhibition visitors, together with the selection of works, influences the interpretation of the artworks, the amount of time spent with them, and the perception of the exhibited artist’s practice – and what these choices may reveal about the exhibitor. She aims to communicate that a visitor’s experience of art is shaped, among other things, by the information a curator chooses to provide or omit, the language and visual form through which it is presented, as well as by the visitor’s own agency, identity, and prior knowledge. What happens when the text is altered or removed from the exhibition space? How does reading this text affect your experience?
Events
Exhibition opening
Exhibition opening reception Thursday 12 March 2026, 17–19.
Live encounters in the exhibition
- At the exhibition opening on Thursday, 12 March, 5.00–7.00 pm
- At the end of the Kalasatama Art Walk on Sunday, 15 March, at approximately 3.15 pm
(The Kalasatama Art Walk takes place on Sunday, 15 March 2026 at 2.00 pm and lasts approximately 1.5 hours.) - On Thursday, 19 March at 3.00 pm
- Milla Risku, the artist behind the Cöleur magnifique piece, will organize a tube lottery on the last day of the exhibition on Sunday, 22 March, 4:30-5:30 pm. Every lottery ticket wins!