Kirpilä Art Collection’s Anniversary Year Opens with Helena Hietanen’s Exhibition TIME

In 2027, Kirpilä Art Collection celebrates its 35th anniversary with a diverse programme of exhibitions and public events. The anniversary year opens with sculptor Helena Hietanen’s exhibition TIME, on view from 7 February to 16 May 2027.

The memory of the body and the traces left by time form the central themes of the exhibition. The selection of works on view establishes a connection to Hietanen’s 1996 exhibition of the same name at Galerie Anhava in Helsinki. Two years later, Hietanen was diagnosed with breast cancer, which imposed new conditions on her artistic practice. The pace of her work slowed, and the rapid international ascent of her career came to an abrupt halt.

Helena Hietanen says:

“I have not made art for others to view in the 19 years since retiring. Yet the images have continued to live on in my mind. When I was invited to put together an exhibition from my earlier works, new ideas began to emerge. I have revisited and commented on my works by modifying them. Braid, from 1996, is a six-metre-long work made from braids donated to me by an elderly woman who had collected them over a period of twenty years. Over time, the hair had changed from brown to grey. The woman told me how she had wondered why she had started saving the hair that fell from her head, and she recalled the thick braid of her youth. For decades, I carried with me an image of the braid wrapped around my own head as a crown. Now I find myself wondering why that image stayed with me. Did I want to imagine myself as an old woman because I hoped to live a long life?”

As a sculptor, Hietanen has sought materials and working methods suited to her body and physical strength at different stages of her life. The works presented at Kirpilä Art Collection offer an overview of Hietanen’s artistic production over three decades. At the same time, the exhibition builds an intimate portrait of the artist living in the shadow of serious illness.

The exhibition unfolds throughout Kirpilä Art Collection through self-portraits, works made from hair, and sculptures constructed from optical fibre. The works enter into dialogue with Kirpilä’s historic setting and explore how materials, memories and experiences acquire new meanings over time.

Further details of the public programme and schedule will be announced in early 2027.

Helena Hietanen (b. 1963, Helsinki) is a sculptor known for works incorporating light, optical fibre, hair, rubber and textiles. Her work has been exhibited extensively in Finland and internationally. Her work Technolace was presented at the Venice Biennale in Frame’s project on the Grand Canal in 1997. Hietanen has received numerous honours, including the Finnish State Prize for Visual Arts in 1999 and the William Thuring Foundation main prize in 2007. She was nominated for the Ars Fennica Prize in 2001 and was awarded a special state artist’s pension in 2007. Hietanen has completed numerous public art commissions and has also collaborated with her spouse, visual artist Jaakko Niemelä.

Helena Hietanen, Portrait from the series Old (queen), 2026
Photograph by Heidi Piiroinen.