Address: Kaivokatu 2
If you set out on the Lux Helsinki trail from the Central Railway Station Square, you cannot fail to notice Candy House. Specially produced for Lux Helsinki, this artwork will welcome visitors to the festival by adorning the front of the Ateneum Art Museum with powerful colour combinations. This joyous and impressive work has been created using energy-efficient LED light sources.
Photo: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Sun Effects is a design and production collective from Helsinki specialising in light effects and visualisations. Sun Effects has been in charge of the programme, production and implementation of Lux Helsinki since 2012. The collective's other projects include the Flow Festival, the startup event Slush and the Linnanmäki carnival of light. Its work has been exhibited in more than thirty countries and on five continents.
Address: Kaivokatu 2
Frontiers explores whether we understand the world through details or the big picture. The work invites the viewer to form her own interpretation. Are the work's visual references signs of a lived life, the fragments of a long-lost language or the remnants of structures ruined by war?
The work comprises several reliefs set up on music note stands, as well as a video projection and a soundscape. It will remind viewers of an orchestra: its various elements are in dialogue with each other. Audiovisual elements come forth, change and hide in a continuum of lights and shadows and the imagery of the video projection.
The work was created by sculptor Jarmo Vellonen in collaboration with media artist Marikki Hakola, sound designer Epa Tamminen and musician Jone Takamäki. The installation premièred at the SUOMESTA gallery in Berlin in 2014. Its appearance at Lux Helsinki will be its first in Finland.
The work can be seen, without paying an entrance fee, at the Ateneum Art Museum. It will be on display near the museum shop, on the ground floor in Ateneum's inner courtyard. It lasts 15 minutes and will be exhibited without interruption.
The exhibitions of Ateneum Art Museum, including the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition, are open during the festival from 10 am to 8 pm (tickets 13/11 €).
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Jarmo Vellonen (b. 1958) is an internationally award-winning sculptor from Porvoo. Vellonen's works have featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad, including in Japan and the United States.
Marikki Hakola (b. 1960) is a media artist and film director from Porvoo. Hakola is an award-winning pioneer on the European video art scene. Her varied works have been widely exhibited at international festivals, art museums, various events and on television.
Epa Tamminen (b. 1958) is a lighting and sound designer from Porvoo who has created soundtracks for a number of internationally award-winning short films, animations, media installations and documentaries. Tamminen's career has also included orchestral music, theatre and dance.
Based in Helsinki, Jone Takamäki (b. 1955) is an internationally award-winning composer and musician, and a master of musical improvisation. Takamäki has played in many orchestras and made music for films, dance and theatre performances. He plays instruments such as the saxophone, duduk, shakuhachi and hocchiku.
Address: Kaivokatu 2
11.5 Hz is a study of how to create a variety of light-based shapes by turning a skipping rope. Onlookers will be bewildered by the moving chord of light and the two balls of light it draws in the air.
The fibre-optic cable will be spun by an electric motor, whose speed is adjusted by a frequency converter. The shape created will depend on the rotation speed. The frequency selected for this work is 11.5 hertz, which corresponds to a rotational speed of 345 revolutions per minute.
Since this minimalist work requires space around it, Ateneum will provide the installation with the setting it deserves. The third-floor landing can be reached by walking up the stairs of Ateneum's main lobby. The work can be seen at the museum without paying an entrance fee.
The exhibitions of Ateneum Art Museum, including the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition, are open during the festival from 10 am to 8 pm (tickets 13/11 €).
The work featured in the Design Forum Showroom, which was part of the Lux Helsinki additional programme in 2015.
Photo: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Kai van der Puij (born 1969) is a designer who lives in Helsinki. This specialist in design and architecture graduated in interior design from the School of Art and Design Art and in architecture from the University of Technology in Otaniemi.
Address: Yliopistonkatu 3
Loopy Lou is a work about the beauty of movement. It consists of a figure, jumping over a skipping rope, whose movements are created by just a few LED lights. This light sculpture works from any viewing angle. Lose yourself in the hypnotic movement of the rope – and feel like a child again!
The work is dedicated to the artist's daughter, whose movements were recorded for the piece when she was eight. People who know the girl say that Loopy Lou's movements are clearly identifiable.
Loopy Lou featured in the Staro Rīga Light Festival in 2014.
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Rémi Brun (b. 1964) lives and works in Paris. In his own words, Brun is a movement engineer who has specialised in capturing motion for over 20 years. He has come to see movement as a material in its own right, independent of its matter, shape, sound and colour. His sculptures capture movement such as the pirouette of a ballerina or the predatory sprint of a panther.
Address: At the crossing between Yliopistonkatu and Unioninkatu
When the imagination takes over, even everyday objects acquire new dimensions. Such objects can include buildings, for example. Megamap is a collection of stories about such elements and dimensions. The work opens the viewer's senses and stimulates the imagination, showing what lies beneath the surface of familiar things.
Like a number of similar video works exhibited abroad, this flamboyant, commissioned work is based on video mapping technology. Several such works served as the inspiration for Megamap. Only a few works based on this technique have been seen in Finland.
A precise 3D model will be made of the Cathedral bell tower, to serve as a basis for a range of content production. Astounding three-dimensional content can be created on a two-dimensional surface by manipulating 3D animation perspectives. The 3D animation will be cast by a high-performance projector on the entire wall surface of the bell tower.
Its soundscape will be based on an original rendition of familiar works of classical music.
The soundtrack of artwork contains:
Mussorsky - Night on a Bald Mountain
Dvorak - Symphony No.9 4th Movement
Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra
Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor
Barber - Adagio for Strings
Wagner - Ride of the Valkyries
Prokofiev - Dance of the Knights
Intro, sound effects & remix: Shader
The piece can be viewed without a break and will last seven minutes. Shader Oy, the company behind this work, is a partner of Lux Helsinki.
Photo: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Shader is a production team of three people who met as students. This Helsinki-Rovaniemi trio's strength lies in multi-skilled digital production. Their expertise is grounded in long-standing interests providing experience in the visual arts and digital tools going all the way back to the beginning of the 90s.
Pekka Tavi (b. 1979, Kangasala) is an animator and modeller.
Mikko Kunnari (b. 1979, Kemijärvi) is a visual artist who specialises in 3D visualisation. He moves freely between traditional and digital visual expression, using aesthetic means to evoke moods and feelings.
Timo Yliräisänen (b. 1975, Kemijärvi) is a producer and audio-visual generalist whose art dwells on encounters between people and technology. Yliräisänen wants to create art which everyone can experience.
Ilon kuvia (Images of Joy) invites you to relax in the middle of Senate Square. Eight artists will each create one image for the work, to be projected onto the surface of the Cathedral in turn. Ilon kuvia will explore joyous moods from various perspectives. This silent work is being specially created for Lux Helsinki.
Viewers will have the chance to compare interpretations of joy by different artists. The artists work in the no man's land between different genres of art: they include photographer Stefan Bremer, photographer Eeva Hannula, painter Henna Jula, media artist Heta Kuchka, graphic artist Visa Norros, painter Maiju Salmenkivi, lighting designer Petri Tuhkanen and painter and comic book artist Katja Tukiainen. The curator of the work is lighting designer Mia Kivinen.
The work will be created using traditional projector technology. Each artist will begin by using the technique of their choice to create an image, after which it will be converted into digital format. The image will be divided between several high-powered projectors, similar to overhead projectors, which will reassemble the image by projecting each fragment simultaneously.
The German artistic couple Casa Magica held a workshop for the artists in October 2015; the subject was the issues artists need to take into account when creating a work for the large surface of the Cathedral. The pair created Emergence on the Cathedral façade for the 2013 Lux Helsinki festival.
The work will last for eight minutes and be shown without interruption throughout the festival.
Photos of the artworks by Maiju Salmenkivi, Stefan Bremer and Katja Tukiainen: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Stefan Bremer (b. 1953) is a major figure in Finnish photography. His wide-ranging work includes photojournalism, documentarism and art photography. Bremer's subjects have included Helsinki, subcultures and politics.
Pictures by photographer Eeva Hannula (b. 1983) approach uncertainty from various angles. In her work, she seeks to disrupt the fundamental nature of things and change their everyday meaning.
Nature forms the themes explored by painter Henna Jula (b. 1990). Her works clearly display the speed and direction of her brush strokes. Wholes emerge and fade – things coalesce and disintegrate simultaneously.
Media artist Heta Kuchka (b. 1974) works with videos, photography and installations. Her works present dialogues – with a humorous twist – on identity, communications, the media and society.
Graphic artist Visa Norros (b. 1960) works in metal graphics, combining the potential of graphics and painting. Although his works are abstract, nature and the landscape are always somehow present.
Fantasy meets reality in the expressionist landscapes of painter Maiju Salmenkivi (b. 1972). Everyday observations are counterpointed by global news phenomena as the subjects of her colourful paintings.
Petri Tuhkanen (b. 1980) has worked on a wide range of performing arts as a lighting and video designer and set designer. His light artwork, Sinisten välissä (In Between the Blues), which explored colours between the sea and the sky, featured in a previous Lux Helsinki.
Painter and comic-strip artist Katja Tukiainen (b. 1969) has become famous for her pink paintings with their common theme of girlish characters and animals. Her narrative works have become darker in recent years.
He olivat täällä (They were here) will bring former residents of the Tori Quarters to life. According to Alexander Reichstein, people never truly disappear without a trace: we can still hear words, steps and even breaths taken from long ago. Persons long since dead wander in the garden, meet each other in the drawing room and enjoy fresh air on the balcony.
In UV light, figures bent from wire and sprayed with fluorescent paint will come to life like ghosts. These translucent characters will blend in with their environment and Sofiankatu's surroundings will become part of the work.
As can be seen in his stylised figures, Alexander Reichstein is a trained graphic artist. This work was specially commissioned for Lux Helsinki.
Photo: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
The artist Alexander Reichstein (b. 1957) was born in Moscow, but has lived and worked in Helsinki since 1990. He often creates art for and alongside children. His work includes children's books, sculptures and installations – in addition to which he has designed large, interactive exhibitions for museums. The artist's works have been presented extensively abroad, in countries such as Iceland and Japan. Reichstein's illustrated book Gondwanan lapset was awarded the Finlandia Junior prize in 1997. He won the Children's Culture State Award in 2008.
Address: Pohjoisesplanadi 1
A large, illuminated installation surprises the viewer. At first it seems like a beautiful and mesmerising night-time cityscape, but the realisation of the buildings' materials takes the artwork's themes to deeper levels. Medicine City is made of tens of thousands of empty aluminium medicine packages. Each medicine package has been broken in a different way, making each window look different.
The artwork is about the medicalisation of our society. Cities can also be seen as a medicine for loneliness and light as a medicine against fear. A person can be found behind the light at each window in a dark city. Presented on the Esplanade Park stage, this work will resemble a miniature city in the midst of a real one.
An estimated 22,000 medicine packages were used for the work. Two artists took six months to create it.
Medicine City has been presented on previous occasions at the Tampere Art Museum, the SUOMESTA gallery in Berlin and the Kuopio Art Museum. It was also featured as part of the Lux Helsinki Lux IN exhibition at the Cable Factory in 2014.
Photo: Marina Ekroos
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Antti Pussinen (b. 1984, Tampere) is a visual and sound artist who is interested in a variety of environments and their effect on people. Through his art, Pussinen strives to create environments that affect the viewer through his or her emotions, memories and associations. For Pussinen, the city environment in particular is a fascinating testing ground of humanity and tolerance. In a city, people are forced to live side by side and cannot hide among like-minded friends.
Martta-Kaisa Virta (b. 1984, Paimio) is an artist and illustrator. Her art consists of a flowing stream of consciousness, in which one artistic solution leads to another. She observes the world by drawing: a pen, felt tip and ink bottle become an extension of her hand.
Address: Esplanadi
Giant desk lamps have escaped from a large office to have fun. They come to rest in the Esplanade Park, behaving as if they had always been there: they change the environment, highlighting a variety of perspectives with their colourful beams of light.
Lampounette is based on a change of scale, whereby desk lamps are magnified into outdoor lamps many metres tall. They were inspired by the world-famous architect lamps which, in enlarged form, now set out to conquer new spaces. The lamps can be up to seven metres high when extended to the maximum. People can also sit on the bases.
The kitsch works of the TILT group have featured in light festivals in locations such as Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, Lyon in France, Beijing in China and Brussels in Belgium.
Photo: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
TILT is a French artist studio which focuses on the study of light and its interaction with art, architecture and space. TILT seeks to impact on people's perspectives and experiences of a particular place. TILT is inspired by nature and everyday life: the works seek to create a dreamlike realm coloured by humour and poetry.
Address: Parking hall entrance at the crossing between Erottajankatu and Bulevardi.
Nowhere tries to imagine somewhere, a place we can’t touch but can feel.
Nowhere can take us anywhere. It refers to a possibility, a utopia.
Nowhere is a location that makes fun of itself.
Nowhere is hidden but still very much there.
Nowhere talks about what we can’t see.
The word "nowhere" has a different meaning for everyone. It is both a question and an answer in itself. In the middle of nowhere, where there is always something.
The work is inspired by long car drives on the back seat of your parents' car, passing the lights of cheap motels, the red light district and late night movie theatres. Nowhere speaks of melancholy but at the same time of hope.
The bulbs are similar to the traditional, incandescent bulbs used by the fairs that pass through Belgium every year. They remind us of a time and place to which we cannot return even if we want to.
The work has featured in a number of events in the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland. On this occasion, Nowhere will decorate the entrance to the parking building designed by Alvar Aalto, which is also known as the Erottaja Pavilion.
Photo: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Nathalie Chambart (b. 1982) is a Belgian artist. Her varied work includes light artworks, photography and interventions in the public space. She explores issues that are either trivial or lost, creating art from themes that are hidden in plain sight. Everyone can interpret her works in their own way.
Address: Bulevardi
The atmospheric Lantern Park will be brought to life this year in the familiar surroundings of the Old Church Park (Vanha kirkkopuisto), also known as Ruttopuisto (the "Plague Park"). The work will feature around 250 lanterns. Lighting belonging to the park itself will contribute to the atmosphere.
In addition to lanterns familiar from previous years, there will be new lanterns prepared by students of art and design. There will also be lanterns made from recycled electronics, created by volunteers from the Slush growth-company event and lanterns created by handicraft artists from the Fiskars village, by designers and by members of the artists' cooperative ONOMA for the Tuli & Valo (Fire & Light) event.
The imagination was the only limit during the creation of the lanterns: a dishwashing brush, a top hat, twist ties, disposable cups, sweets and scooter helmets can be found among the lanterns.
The Lantern Park will be created in collaboration with students from Aalto University and the University of the Arts Helsinki. The park will be curated by lighting designer Mia Kivinen.
Photos: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Address: Bulevardi
Color Park aims to get visitors playing with light. The work is inspired by colours, resulting in a powerful visual experience. Its calm tempo contrasts with the hectic pace of life.
The feeling of peace creates an almost meditative atmosphere in which the audience can focus on experiencing and exploring light. At several interactive points, visitors can use motion and proximity sensors to change the colour of the work. Also the Old Church will become a part of the installation.
This work was specially commissioned for Lux Helsinki. Color Park and Lantern Park will form a coherent whole at the Old Church Park (Vanha kirkkopuisto).
Photo of the installation: Lauri Rotko
Photo of Kari Kola: Ville Kokkola
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Joensuu-based light artist Kari Kola (b. 1978) has been interested in light all his life. Kola has been involved in the performing arts, concerts and festivals, but is known for his large-scale, outdoor light artwork in particular. In October 2015, Kola created the light artwork Magical Garden on an island in central Prague for the SIGNAL light festival. His works have been on exhibition in light festivals in Portugal and Slovenia, as well as at the opening ceremony of the UN's International Year of Light in Paris in 2015. Kola also organised the Aurora Carealis light festival in Joensuu.
An' She Said Yea is a tribute to the hit Onion Soup, originally released by rock band 22-Pistepirkko. It explores what lies at the core of rock music, its naivety and flashbacks to cherished memories. The joy and nostalgia involved in recognition form part of the work: the song starts playing in the heads of viewers who recall its lyrics. Old neon signs served as a source of visual inspiration.
The work has since become a memento, with the band announcing a break of uncertain duration in June 2015.
Displayed in the window of Bar Loose, this artwork is an almost identical second version of the same artwork by Mustonen. The first version has been seen in Galerie Pleiku in Berlin, in Stockholm, at the Supermarket Art Fair, and at the Mänttä Art Festival.
Mustonen states that the work is being displayed at its best at Lux Helsinki, in an environment where high and popular culture meet in the Bar Loose window. He believes that there has been so much cross-fertilisation between high and popular culture that it no longer seems necessary to define a boundary between them.
Are we gonna have tonight some onion soup?
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Kalle Mustonen (b. 1979) is a Helsinki-based sculptor who was born in Lahti. Mustonen's pop culture icons, such as skulls, diamonds and garden gnomes, draw the viewer into taking a closer look and exploring the darker undertones of the works.
Address: Crossing between Annankatu and Kalevankatu
CLOUD is an interactive sculpture created from six thousand incandescent light bulbs. The raindrops hanging from the light-bulb cloud are pull-chain switches which visitors can use to switch the bulbs off and on. This joyful and playful work is sure to put smiles on people's faces.
The light bulbs used were collected from ordinary residents in the Canadian artists' neighbourhood. Active participation by the public is an important element in the work: for example, audiences have created an effect resembling lightning in the cloud by pulling several switches simultaneously.
The work has gained new meaning at a time when incandescent light bulbs have been abandoned in the European Union and a number of other countries. Where are we going next?
CLOUD relies on universal imagery which is understood around the world. Rain clouds are familiar to everyone, regardless of language barriers, cultural differences and geographical distances.
The work has been seen in a number of light festivals around the world in places such as Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Jerusalem in Israel, Cascais in Portugal, and in Singapore.
Photos: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Canadians Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett are involved in a diverse range of artistic activities. Public participation and materials of new types form an essential part of their works: their playful art invites the audience to engage in broad-minded experimentation. Above all, change lies at the core of their work. They have exhibited works in museums, galleries and festivals around the world.
Address: Annankatu 30
This interplay between colours and shapes decorating the Annantalo courtyard and façade will come to life when visitors walk through the middle of the work's lights. By walking in front of the light, members of the public can see their own shadows form part of the work – as part of the world in which we live.
The work is intended as a counterblast to the cynical and narrow-minded world view that is gaining ground in Finland and Europe. Life cannot be defined as a mathematical equation and the values of society cannot be framed by economic formulae. The world is not black and white, and should not be regarded as such. We need the courage to gaze at the variety of colours and shapes that enrich our everyday lives.
The work was inspired by the history of the related primary school, which was built in 1886 and is now an art house for children and young people. Its name is based on the title of an atlas. Devices such as overhead projectors are used as light sources.
Maailma jossa elämme (The world in which we live) was specially commissioned for Lux Helsinki.
Photo: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
Immanuel Pax (b. 1988) is a Helsinki-based light artist, whose works have been seen on theatre stages and in urban spaces. His first permanent light installation, Än, yy, tee, NYT! will be on display from December 2015 onwards near the Neulanen kindergarten on Orpaanporras street in Myllypuro. Immanuel's light artworks combine a site-specific, interactive approach. They require public participation in order to be realised.
Address: Annankatu 30
The Valoleikkipuisto (Light Playground) invites people of all ages to explore the many things that can be achieved with light. In the Valoleikkipuisto, you can treat the winter blues, enjoy light painting, explore a light jungle and go all the way AR OU ND. You can also enjoy a polar night drink at the Book Café or step into the buildings on display at the exhibition By – Olipa kerran kylä (Once upon a time there was a village).
The following can be enjoyed in the Valoleikkipuisto:
Click on the above links to find out more about the various parts of the Valoleikkipuisto!
Free admission. The installation is supported by Innolux.
First two photos: Mauri Tahvonen
Third photo: Lauri Rotko
Performance time: 5 pm – 10 pm
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