THRESHOLDS


23.4.–26.4.2025

EXHIBITION

Thresholds exhibition takes fills Info Center Korona with art. The exhibition takes over a vacant commercial space as well as several greenrooms in the building where the artworks will have a dialogue with the unique vegetation and micro climates. 




THRESHOLDS




Change is constant and inevitable. Our bodies, minds, and presence are in constant transition. The uncanniness of the world reveals itself as we pause in-between past, present and future.

The exhibition explores these states of liminality of time and space. The exhibition fills the Info Center Korona on Helsinki University Viikki campus with art from members of Art For All ry. The artists explore the spaces in-between time, body and physical space.




Exhibition is open Wednesday April 23rd to Saturday April 26th in Info Center Korona at Viikinkaari 11, 00790 Helsinki. 

The event is supported by City of Helsinki, University of Helsinki, Helsinki University Library, Helsinki City Library and CoolHead Bew.






PROGRAMME 23.4.

Exhibition opening Wednesday April 23rd


17:00 Doors open

17:30 Opening words

17:35 Performance by Kulminaatio collective

18:00 performance by Välke Ruusunen

18:30-20:00 Music by DJ Prins Eugen and possibility to tour the exhibition

20:00 Building closes and after party at CoolHead Brew



MEET THE ARTISTS



Kaius Kuhmonen

we went to places like this, we filmed with this camera

2024, Stop motion animation video, 0’4”


käytiin tällaisissa paikoissa, kuvattiin tällä kameralla  /  we went to places like this, we filmed with this camera  (2024) is a 4-second stop-motion animation loop made from footage shot with a 20-year-old pocket camera. The camera belonged to my parents, who I used it with on nature trips during my childhood. The frames were printed on paper, handwritten with text, then scanned back into digital form. The work deals with nostalgia, family, and inheriting one’s relationship to nature from their parents. It also plays with the materiality of physical and digital – paper, handwriting, and grainy video.




Kaius Kuhmonen is a multimedia artist and art education student working with video, performance, and interactive media. Kuhmonen’s work deals with nostalgia, nature, and observations of human society. Recently Kaius has been exploring programming and interactive media.




Suthasinee N.
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Flooding Pattern

2024, Digital artwork


This project was inspired by my annual visits to my grandmother in the northern part of Thailand. Her having to move furniture to the second level of the house every year to escape flooding has drawn my serious attention to this issue.

Each region of Thailand has its own long history of weaving. This cultural knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation. One of the famous patterns is called ‘ลายน้ำไหล,’ or ‘flowing water,’ from Nan province. It was inspired by the main river, which is the heart of the region’s community but unfortunately floods frequently, destroying lives and homes. Climate change has worsened the issue, and in 2024, Nan experienced a major flood with the highest water level in 100 years.

Using the 30 years data (1988-2018) of water amount in each month at the main measurement station (Nan River, N.1, Forestry Office), each Row consists of 12 patterns representing 12 months. The number of lines in between each year corresponds to the number of accumulated water of the previous year. The width and the height of year and month correspond to the amount of water collected in that particular period.



Suthasinee is a designer, lifelong learner, and curious experimenter with a deep appreciation for unordinary ideas, passionate about weaving technology and art to craft or reimagine stories in a new light.




Luiza Preda
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Overcast Autumn Winds with Steady Resilience, The Nordic Forecast

2021, Photography on canvas


The Nordic Forecast is a series of over 40 works blending self-portraiture and body performance, capturing the artist’s adaptation to Finland’s shifting climate across all seasons. Through various perspectives, the series reveals the emotional and physical resilience required to endure the extremes of nature.

Born from the artist’s relocation to Finland, the project became a personal ritual and quiet resistance to the cold. It explores the body’s relationship with its environment, reflecting the emotional and physical strength needed to navigate the challenges of climate change and its profound impact on the self.



Luiza Preda is a conceptual artist exploring time, space, and perception through still and moving images. Her intuitive process allows subconscious narratives to emerge organically, often long after the work is made. Her immersive installations merge photography with mixed-media techniques—such as sound, textiles, and spatial design—creating multi-sensory experiences that foster introspection and emotional connection.





Jule Timm


Somatotopic Landscapes

Video 2’10”, Burnt wood, porcelain, glaze, soil, wax


Somatotopy describes areas of the body where the body as a whole is reflected. This work is about the relation of our body as a cartographic representation of the whole organism we inhabit. Capturing the notion of caring while playing with the symbolism of teeth, I translated somatotopy to the wider body of earth, seeing us humans as a somatotopic area, reflecting our interrelation of our small to the extended body.



Jule Timm (she/her) is a German-born artist and designer, currently pursuing an MA in Contemporary Design at Aalto University. Her work is situated at the intersection of art and ecology and focuses on social and environmental questions. In her practice, she often works with and through the body, weaving together different narratives, concepts and material research.







Aleksandra Kuokkanen
Ravel, flipside (or knotting)

2025, Installation consisting of paper screen, satin lace, steel and concrete


On the wrong end, the flipside, where you can see the bottom thread (the unfit viewing direction). Ravel, flipside (or knotting) acts as a divider of negative space, and suggests looking at three-dimensional as only two - the front, and the back.



Aleksandra Kuokkanen (b. 1996) is a Helsinki based artist interested in the meeting of the personal and the shared, and in opportunities to form relations or connections through art objects. Kuokkanen works mainly with means of installation, and has recently been exploring intimacy, touch and the act of leaving a mark. They are now finishing their master’s at The Academy of Fine arts, and have also studied in Art School Maa and Pekka Halonen academy.






Tymon Teo Borzecki
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To keep and to not lose

2024, Carvings on transparent plates, Chain, Rope

Tymon Teo Borzecki is a Polish Helsinki-based visual artist, working with photography, print, ceramics, sculpture, and humor. Disability, (trans)masculinity, intimacy, nostalgia as well as notions of natural/“biological” vs. unnatural or artificial are recurring themes in Teo’s work. Teo sees his practice as a playground for examining concepts and personal experiences, as well as a tool for imagining more livable futures. Recently Teo has been interested in moving between 2- and 3- dimensional realms through material explorations of drawing, print and sculpture.






Pola Laamanen
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Stitched land

Hand embroidered piece, 25x20 cm


Inspired by the fleeting and fragmented views from an airplane window, this hand-embroidered textile piece captures the patchwork of landscapes seen from above - lakes carving through fields, pathways and roads threading between forests. The meticulous stitchwork translates aerial perspectives into tactile textures, offering a meditation on distance, observation, and the ways in which we map our surroundings.



Pola Laamanen (b. 1989, St. Petersburg, Russia) is a contemporary embroidery artist based in Vantaa, Finland (since 2019). Blending traditional techniques with hand-modified textiles, Pola’s background in Chemical Engineering informs her unique approach to texture and material.

Laamanen developed her signature style in 2016, launching a popular line of hand-embroidered jewellery. Her innovative work has garnered international recognition, with features in Vogue Scandinavia and Embroidery Magazine (UK). Her book, 3D Realistic Embroidery (EKSMO, 2020), highlights her creative vision and technical expertise.

In 2024, Pola received an artistic grant from the Kone Foundation and a creative entrepreneur grant from AVEK Kopiosto. These accolades support her current work, where she delves into embroidery heritage, reimagining traditional techniques within a modern context.




Daniel Palpa
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Back to the ground

2025, 4 clay sculptures


Nuclear Cholo pieces explores the entanglement of identity, power, and legacy through a visual dialogue between nuclear war iconography, the colonial Spanish casta system, and ancient Peruvian ceramic forms. By re-contextualizing pre-Columbian forms with dystopian symbols of annihilation, the piece critiques the violent hierarchies embedded in both historical and modern systems. The term cholo, once used to classify mixed Indigenous identity under colonial rule, is reimagined as a site of resistance—an echo of survival. Layered with apocalyptic imagery, the work reflects on the socio-political fallout of imperialism, casting ancient cultural expression into a contemporary lens of global precarity and resilience.


Palpas work spans into the intersections of media consumption, religion, and politics, using mediums such as moving image, photography, and sculpture. Palpa's work infuses public spaces with poetic narratives that challenge conventional personal expectations. A recurring theme in Palpa's art is the exploration of how belief, imagery, and ideology become intertwined and constructed within a consumerist landscape. This exploration often takes shape in his large-scale installations, which reimagine aesthetic vandalism and propagandistic seduction that questions its surroundings.






Anna-Liisa Harju and Sanna Töykkälä
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In between

2024, Pigment prints on fine art paper, 60x40cm and 60x34cm

We are a visual artist collective from Helsinki focusing on photography. Our latest visual projects have developed into narrative visual discussions with senses that nature has to offer. We try to encourage our audience to engage into thinking about the experiences and thoughts they had when encountering material found in nature. We use elements like wood, moss, fur and crops to remind people about the simple sensations that make us part of our environment. We find photography to be a timeless and versatile medium to catch the changing light and vast opportunities but also use it´s illusional character as a provocative way to show the distance between us and our surrounding world. Part of our practice is also to show the joy of doing creative work and spread the importance of art as a way to engage with the world.


Anna-Liisa Harju is a visual artist and educator based in Helsinki. She is a Lapland Univeristy Faculty of Art alumni with additional studies in Helsinki University.

In her practice Anna-Liisa focuses on producing an image. She works with drawing, painting and photography for the most part but also produces three dimensional pieces and installations. Anna-Liisa is the board member of Art for All art organisation that promotes the accessibility of art and collaborations between artists.

Anna-Liisa has experience from working in art education, as an independent visual artist and working as an art director. Her latest work is a narrative photography collection In between done in collaboration with photographer Sanna Töykkälä.



Sanna Töykkälä is an Espoo based passionate photographer specialising in depicting the beauty of motherhood and diversity. Sanna intends to create emotional visual projects that reflect the most meaningful moments in our lives. Photography is about telling a story - for me every image is its own unique story.

Töykkälä started as a freelance photographer in Melbourne, Australia and she has been an entrepreneur since 2019 in Sanna Helena Photography. In addition to photoshoots Sanna has helped companies to create their visual identity and been fully responsible for the whole photography process from initial plans to final editing.




Tuulia Kivistö
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Essay4SpringPulsations

2024, Two channel video installation

The work is a two channel video installation that explores a bond and a feeling of undefined meaningfulness. The essay is written to Uhrilähde - a sacrifice spring, which is located on Hämeenkangas close to Jämijärvi.

''So there is this spot - rich with treasures it has eaten, full of needles, coins and jewels''



Tuulia Kivistö is an artist focused on video, installation and painting. Tuulia’s works are atmosphere oriented and tend to be somehow blue. They are interested in the feeling of undefined meaningfulness, friendships and time. 




PERFORMANCES
Pääte.

2024, Video, Sound, Dance performance


Pääte. is a multidisciplinary contemporary art performance that explores the multitude of ways AI affects the human perception of space, body, and reality. The performance seeks forms, feedback loops and dynamic inputs under the chaos. It poses the question: what do human relationships and life look like in the future when they are constantly linked with technology and AI. Where does all information go? Who am I when no-one answers? The performance consists of video and sound and was part first performed as part of a stage performance in Autumn 2024.



Kulminaatio is an interdisciplinary Helsinki based artist collective in the field of performing arts. The collective consists of artists from contemporary dance, poetry, digital sound production, visual arts and music. The collective combines these art forms into multifaceted performances which provide a platform for dialogue. Collective’s earlier works Sokea piste (2021), Emma ja Elham (2022) ja Pääte. (2024) have tackled society’s blind spots, poverty in the Finnish society and ethics of artificial intelligence. Kulminaatio has been recognized internationally for their work.




Kulminaatio
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Syviä Häivähdyksiä, Deep Tinge

2024, Dance performance, Sound

In the poem of Stephen Crane “In The Desert” (1895) they find a bestial creature eating pleasureful their own bitter heart in the middle of a desert. I instead found a wheelbarrow of freshly cut roses in front of the botanical garden, beautifully blooming, at the same time dying. For me both of these images merge creating an amalgamation of pleasure and pain, of vulnerability, the incredible beauty of life, and death which is always there. My wish is to playfully dance it.


Välke Ruusunen is a dance artist exploring and wandering the world through dance, butoh and improvisation. They are interested in sensations, bodily knowledge, softness, rituals and sensuous existence. Välke’s favourite tools in their practice are improvisation,TRE and touch explorations. In the centre of their work and method is sensitising to the environment and sensations. Their aim is to dismantle the at the moment dominating state of collective dissociation in the society.




Välke Ruususen

Prins Eugen

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ARRIVAL AT THE VENUE

The festival venue is accessible. The exhibition takes place in a public library that has been constructed according to the latest accessibility standards. If needed, the festival staff will provide assistance.

SAFER SPACE

The festival aims to create an inclusive and safe event for all visitors and staff. We follow safer space guidelines that you can find throught the link below. We expect all visitors to follow these guidelines. The festival area is a harrasment free zone and all people behaving inappropriately will be removed from the venue. We welcome all visitors to attend with a safe mind and encourage everyone to contact the festival team incase you find any deficiencies or ideas for improval: artforallry@gmail.com

AFA’s Safer Space Guidelines

ART FOR ALL RY

Art for All ry supports artists and art workers at the beginning of their career and offers a network of peer collaboration. With this mission in mind, the AFA Festival is a platform offering students and emerging talent across Finland visibility and an opportunity to grow. The Festival team puts into practice their knowledge and creativity as artists, technicians, communicators, photographers, curators, project managers, to bring the Festival to life.

Art For All ry was started by students and alumni from the University of the Arts and Aalto University. The first edition of the AFA Festival took place at Malmi Airport Hangar in August 2021, the second on in Kaisaniemi Botanical gardens 2022, and the third in the residential buildings of Kalasatama neighborhood.



















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