Soiva Metsä Festival
founder, creative direction & executive producer with Maija Kovalainen, fund manager
The Soiva Metsä Festival is a participatory and experimential multi-arts festival in Kainuu, located in a forest environment. Festival is organised every other year and includes an artist residency program that takes place on the summers without the festival producing new works premiered at the festival.
Organised for the first time from 3rd to 6th July 2025, the event attracted 1600 visitors from all over Finland to Suomussalmi's Soiva Forest during four days. The festival offered an experience of art, forest environment and people coming together. The forest, together with the active message of the event, created an opportunity for visitors to experience art on their own terms and gave the event a peaceful, intense, subversive and communal atmosphere. The festival was made possible by the wonderful diverse local community of Suomussalmi, the wonderful volunteers and the artists!
2023–
Entangled City | Elonkirjon kaupunki
with architects Seela Pentikäinen, Heljä Nieminen and Cecilia Aintila
Within the Entangled city project, we are developing alternative zoning plans. The primary goal of these plans is to offer alternatives to municipal zoning proposals, ensuring that urban forests are preserved from construction. Many existing zoning plans designating forest areas for development are outdated – urban forests are invaluable for regional biodiversity and resident well-being. A significant portion of Finland's remaining natural forests is located within urban areas.
Our aim is to create alternatives to plans that threaten forests and to integrate current research on the environmental crisis into concrete urban planning solutions. We develop alternative urban plans by combining research and site-specific data through participatory planning methods. We explore the latest developments in biodiversity-conscious urban planning and apply them within local contexts. Once the plans are completed, they will be presented to the city in collaboration with residents. For each zoning proposal, information sessions and planning walks will be organized, bringing together residents, decision-makers, and planners.
2024–
Somos S.U.R X You Tell Me Collective
structure: Siiri and architect Seela Pentikäinen, fabric: Otso Jämsä and Maija Kovalainen
18.10.–1.11.2023 at Aalto University
Multiusable Exhibition Structure
2023
Audio Walk
with sound designer Jon Pettersson
part of Amos Rex Genration 2023 group exhibition
The Audio Walk takes the listener to a familiar city, where the fabric of music, sound and language creates a new personal but shared space. The soundscape in the work en- courages us to listen and to become sensitive to our own environment, and thus to create a new mental urban space; a new will to care of it. The work seeks to expand the way we talk about our experiences through the playfulness of language and the intersection of word and sound.
2023
The River Assemblies
with architect Seela Pentikäinen and landscape architect Ella Prokkola
part of EASA Commons, Sheffield UK, 2023
teaching at the Estonian Art Academy, Tallinn, Estonia, 2024
residency at ZK/U Berlin, 2025
The River Assembies is a project launched in 2022 by Seela Pentikäinen, Siiri Hänninen, and Ella Prokkola that delves into the non-human world, recognizing vital resources such as air, clean water, and healthy soil as products of non-human processes. The project aims to explore ways to recognize and pay more attention to the beings responsible for producing these shared resources that are essential to our well-being.
The project includes a series of workshops and research around the assembly tool. The first workshop was held at EASA Commons (The European Architecture Students’ Assembly) in the summer of 2023. In the summer of 2024, the workshop was organized as an elective course at the Estonian Art Academy. During 2024-2025, the theoretical framework and methodology of the workshop will be developed. During the fall 2025 the project is developed in residency at ZK/U Berlin. In Berlin, the workshop focuses on the urban river Panke. During the residency the materials from three different post-industrial rivers (Sheaf Sheffield, Mustjögi Tallinn, Panke Berlin) will be gathered to an exhibition. The project encourages designers to integrate non-human perspectives into their thinking and brings knowledge about river rights through participatory river walks and rituals organised around the river.
2022–2025
Nest
with composer Tara Valkonen
part of Mänttä Art Festival
A temple, a shelter, a home and a womb. A haven for assembly, sharing, privacy, community and being present.
2022
photos: Timo Nieminen
Locus Amoenus - installation
with artist Lea Lintula and sound designer Saana Pohjonen
part of Lahti Sibelius Festival
The installation invites you to explore Aino Sibelius' reciprocal relationship with the garden. The work creates a space for gentleness, peace and reflection in the midst of the festival. Artists Siiri and Lea believe that Aino's garden also inspires people today to reflect on their relationship with nature, creativity and care.
2022
photos: Maarit Kytöharju
Cry for Urban Nature
Huuto kaupunkiluonnon puolesta
with architect Seela Pentikäinen
Helsinki of Dreams Map + Illustration
editors of the book: Jaana Kanninen and Sanni Seppo
publisher: Vastapaino
2022
Room 227
with composer Tara Valkonen
part of Musica Nova Festival
Room 227 is an installation in which the architecture is created with sound. One room becomes a part of a bigger complex – an imaginary building where all the sporadic sounds amalgamate into a symphony.
2021
Ei mikään klubi
with creative Pietari Pyykönen and
soon to be interior architects Eevi Hautanen ja Emilia lonka
One evening multidiciplinary minifestival & a housewarming party for a new club Tiivistämö.
2020
photos: Felix Bardy and Helmi Korhonen
