The curated online gallery Kirpilä Studio presents artist Martin Bergström, whose artistic practice moves fluidly across the fields of fashion, design, and visual art. Bergström’s approach is exploratory and investigative, drawing inspiration from transient plant life, mythical natural phenomena, and historical cycles. These themes recur in his works as structural rhythms and temporal tensions that shift from one material to another. Organic and graphic elements enter into dialogue, as found objects, dried plants, and abstract forms transform across scales and materials.

For Bergström, Kirpilä Art Collection is a familiar and deeply meaningful place. Immersing himself in the art collection and the museum interior strengthened his relationship to his favourite works while also revealing new, unexpected details. For Kirpilä Studio, Bergström created a collage-like artwork that was printed as a scarf. The scarf will be worn by the museum’s guides and staff. Its subtle translucency alludes to the spatial porosity of the museum space — the way the collection and everyday life, history and the present moment overlap within the visitor’s perceptual experience.

Could you tell us a bit about your diverse background as a designer? What kinds of projects occupy you the most?

Patterns and their relationship to the body, time, and space form the overarching theme of my artistic practice. My approach is exploratory and investigative, drawing inspiration from transient plant life as well as from mythical natural phenomena and historical cycles.

My works often carry traces of historical references and are rooted in textile craft traditions, while also extending into materials such as metal, paper, and glass. In 2023, my book Flora Poetica – Edith Södergran i växtriket (Appell Förlag) was published, presenting Södergran’s nature poetry in dialogue with my work. The book functions both as an artwork and a research project, compiling all the plants that appear in her poetry. During this process, I had access to Södergran’s archives in Helsinki at the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, which proved to be deeply inspiring.

For more than a decade, I have collected and studied pressed plants from 1860–1920, incorporating them into my work through collage. These herbarium specimens form a bridge between past and present — between life and death.

Currently, jacquard weaving occupies much of my time, and I am captivated by how my patterns transform when rendered in woven form.

Kirpilä is a familiar and beloved place for you. Did this bring something extra to your design process?

The atmosphere in the space, the artworks, the furniture, the rooms — all of it, how it stretches outward yet holds together — left an imprint on my process. I wanted to preserve the delicate intimacy of the small within the expanse of the whole.

Could you tell us about the artworks that ended up being featured on the scarf, and at the same time describe your working process?

I asked myself: if I could save only one painting from a fire, which would it be? For me, it would be Magnus Enckell’s Young Male Nude (c. 1920s), one of my absolute favourites. I placed it at the centre of the composition.

Around it, I wanted to weave in nature and textures — the pattern on the stones from the fireplace became a grounding element. I also included Maria Wiik’s Thistles (1898) and Lennart Forstén’s Pair of Black Grouse (1869).

The process began with permission to work from high-resolution images of the artworks, which I printed on thick aquarelle paper. I then created an analogue collage, cutting, gluing, and combining the images with pressed 19th-century plants. Once completed, the collage was digitised and sent to the factory in Italy. The scarf carries this layered dialogue between art, nature, and memory.

What projects are you currently working on or have coming up in the future – exhibitions, design work, anything else?

I am currently working on several large exhibitions, including the upcoming installation Flora Hysterica at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm and a show called Growth and Decay at the Västerås Art Museum. In addition, I have designed new pieces for my collection Itu for Kalevala, which will be released this spring. Alongside these projects, I am also developing several other art initiatives, including woven works for churches and various other projects.

Through all aspects of my practice, I aim to create a dialogue between nature and culture, past and present, observation and imagination. My work is an ongoing exploration of patterns that carry history, poetry, and embodied experience – a continuous investigation of the cycles of time and nature.

Kirpilä Studio is a curated online gallery of the Kirpilä Art Collection. It invites artists and collectives into dialogue with the collection and the museum surroundings. Each visit results in a work of art or a series — a trace of the time spent in the space. The artist of the year 2025 was Sandra Kantanen.