9.5.-28.6.2025. When the war in Ukraine began, Vainio remembered the history of her father's family as evacuees. Her teenage father Pekka, his sister Maini and brother Kalevi, and their mother, – Vainio's grandmother Maria, left Sortavala as evacuees in the 1940s and ended up in Rauma.

"My own family's stories have been the starting point for my research work, and I have been working on it for several years now. True stories and photos are the starting points for the works dealing with identity, roots, and home. The works create a picture of the fragility and fading of memories. This work feels important because the stories of evacuees will soon be forgotten if they are not brought to light now.

Transgenerational traumas and survivals remind us of how short the time since the war is in Finland. It has an impact on many post-war generations. The wounds caused by World War II are still with us. However, the experiences of hope and survival are empowering.

Warm thanks to all the individuals and other parties who provided photographs, texts and stories. Without this authentic material, the works in this exhibition would have remained superficial.

Thank you for cooperation RaumArs, Bottomland Productions, Rami Saarela/Kaivopuisto Oy, Mantin Maailma. Thank you to the Erkki Paasikivi Foundation, the Arts Promotion Centre, the City of Rauma and Pamaus-Seura for supporting the project.”

• Leena Vainio

The exhibition brings to light the stories of people who fled the war. It provides glimpses of the feelings and moods experienced by evacuees that migration awakens in them. Where is the home of an evacuee who fled the war? What feelings arise when you must leave your own home in a hurry? Did the evacuees feel at home in Rauma? What is the meaning of home to them?

The exhibition consists of textile and ceramic works, installations and a dance video of the group, filmed in the former Ammus-Sytytin Oy factory, where many of the evacuees, including Vainio's grandmother and father and their siblings, worked. The video brings the stories to the body and engages in dialogue with the other works in the exhibition, completing the body of work as a multi-artistic and multi-sensory whole.

Video team Anne-Mari Kivimäki, music; Linda Kuha & Sini Muranen, choreography and dance; Tuulia Soininen, film/edit; Konsta Leinonen, sound design.

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BIO. Leena Vainio was born in Rauma and lives in Kangasala. The core theme of her work is vulnerability. She reflects on trauma, feelings of sadness and abandonment, transience and time. She is fascinated by the longing and longing for beauty brought on by nostalgia. The layered materials and techniques change, for example, from sheets and threads to paintings and woodcuts.

Vainio graduated as a fine artist (YAMK) from the Kankaanpää Art School of Satakunta University of Applied Sciences and has held annual solo exhibitions in galleries in Finland and participated in group exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Leena Vainio's previous exhibitions at Taidetalo RaumArs (formerly known as Sepän talo) have been the group exhibition Mikrokosmos 2015 and the solo exhibition Saudade and Oblivion 2020. She has also worked in the RaumArs residency in 2020 and 2023.