Helsinki Biennial: The Same Sea – curated by Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola.

Giant coral monsters crocheted out of plastic detritus cluster in a chapel-like space at the Helsinki Biennial. Over 18 months during Covid lockdown – from January 2020 to May 2021 – 3,000 Finnish participants worked their hooks to collectively craft a mind-blowing mass of corals out of fiber and recycled plastic. Vast in scale, this outpouring of Nordic creativity has been curated into two sibling installations for Finland’s inaugural Biennial, taking place simultaneously in downtown Helsinki and on Vallisaari island in the nation’s archipelago.

Helsinki Biennial 2021: The Same Sea, gathers together 40 artists and artist collectives whose work reflects on “the interconnectedness of humans, the environment, and all living things.” For this exhibition, Crochet Coral Reef creators Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim worked with the people of Finland to generate the Helsinki Satellite Reef – to which nearly 3,000 people contributed. Citizens from far-flung regions of Finland sent in corals from all across the country; with crafters coming from all walks of life, including artists, teachers, school children, seniors, and a renowned Finnish designer.

In addition, the Wertheim’s have overseen construction of 4 new Coral Forest sculptures assembled from an epic assortment of plastic crochet pieces made by Helsinki Reefers wholly from recycled materials. At once ludicrous and serious, these totemic works draw our attention to the tsunami of plastic trash pouring into our oceans, threatening marine life everywhere; an artistic index of our plasticene age. Chief among the materials used here is 200 kilos of ribbon-like offcuts salvaged (by Lotte Kjellberg) from the industrial production of toilet paper packaging. Sparkly, sinister and glittering with blue-grey elegance, this unlikely thread lends a distinctive color pallet to the sculptural suite. This Helsinki Coral Forest was co-curated by Margaret and Christine in collaboration with a quartet of local ladies known as Team Finland: Lotta Kjellberg, Elina Ahlstedt, Noora El Harouny and Tuija Maija Piironen. 

Recent news that oceanic plastic has become a vector for transporting invasive species around the globe renders the work all the more poignant and timely. 

Organized by the Helsinki Art Museum with lead curators Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola, Helsinki Biennial – The Same Sea situates art outdoors in the wooded terrain of Vallisaari island and inside within a set of 19th century ammunition bunkers built by the Russian army, a series of sacral spaces resembling miniature Russian cathedrals. Preserved now as a national heritage site, these rooms are complete with century-old graffiti scribbled by stationed soldiers: names of lovers, pencilled portraits, bits of sums – perhaps cannon-ball calculations?

As Siitari and Tappola write, Vallisaari’s dichotomy of wilderness and war-apparatus “offers inspiration for wider perspectives into humanity, our relationship with nature; our history and contemporary life, questions of protection and threat, sustainability and coexistence.”

Helsinki Biennial – List of participating artists 

Helsinki Satellite Reef – Biennial project webpage, List of all 3000 citizen-participant crafters, Gallery of Images + Installation Report