Maan äärellä

How does the ground shape the artist, and how does the artist shape the land? What kinds of dialogues emerge between landscape, maker, and material when local resources are used?

     Two ceramic artists, Maarit Mäkelä and I, tasked ourselves with reading the surrounding landscape and exploring its history and present moment at opposite ends of Finland. The resulting works reflect these journeys of inquiry and mirror the artists’ relationships with their immediate environments.

     During the winter of 2023–2024, we worked using local materials gathered from our surroundings. Mäkelä lived in the far north of Finland by the Nivajoki River in the municipality of Utsjoki, while I worked in the south at the Porkkala Peninsula in Uusimaa. In both processes, material and place possess a strong agency, speaking to the artist through seemingly accidental events and intuition.

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This project was part of a larger exploration called


Photos: Vertti Virasjoki & Mira Niittymäki