1.–30.8.2025.

Two exhibitions, Memories of Those Landscapes and Waves, Waves, Treasures II, are related to natural materials and the archipelago environment. On Baltic Sea Day, 28.8. at 9–13 guided tours for schoolchildren, and on 30.8. at 13–14 meet-the-artists event open to the public, with free admission.

Exhibitions by two young artists: Meri Hiironen''s Memories of those landscapes presents works on paper, installations and graphics in the Hall and the Corner Room, and Ida Rusava's Waves, Waves, Treasures II pencil drawings in the Sirkka's Room.

MERI HIIRONEN. The exhibition Memories of Those Landscapes explores the fragility, transformation, and disappearance of landscapes. While landscape feels eternal it takes only a moment for humans to alter it permanently. Hiironen’s works are visual notes of environments that are personally important. The meanings are preserved in artworks like time capsules.

Hiironen’s artistic practice emphasizes ecologically sustainable methods and the use and meanings of natural materials. The materials are not only tools; they carry memories and histories of the places they are from. Every natural element used in the works has been collected from landscapes meaningful to the artist, so that the landscape itself becomes an important part of the artwork. Hiironen, who is originally from Rauma and lives in Järvenpää, has graduated with a Master of Arts from the Uniarts Helsinki / Academy of Fine Arts in spring 2024.

IDA RUSAVA. Sirkka’s room features pencil drawings by Ida Rusava, an art educator from Tampere.  The artist tells about her works: ”I spend a lot of time on the small island in Luvia during the summer. Over the years, I have developed a routine of walking the island`s shores after heavy winds and collecting debris brouhgt in by the waves. Walking around the shores also feels like my childhood treasure hunting as its collecting objects that doesn`t belong there. I observe every find carefully and save it by drawing it before throwing it away. After drawing the crushed plastic bottle, a part of a rope and a piece of a plastic fabric changes to a collection of light, shadow and shape even thought the description and the place of discovery on the bottom of the piece of arts reminds of the basis. Over 70% of all the garbage on the Finnish shores is plastic. They are the biggest part of my collection from Luvia Archipelago.”

For Rusava, drawing is a way of studying and observing environment. Recently the topics and the basis have been found by the sea and observing environment there. Waves, Waves, Treasures II is a continuation of her previous exhibition in Tampere, Gallery Rajatila.