Kuulumisia (Tidings, Ways of Belonging) exhibition in Lappeenranta, Finland

Kuulumisia (Tidings, Ways of Belonging)

Kuulumisia (Tidings, Ways of Belonging)

Six artists from Australia and Finland contemplate their personal relationship with place and time, through jewellery, objects and painings.

3.-25.8. 2025

Täky Galleria

Satamatie 10, Linnoitus

Lappeenranta, Finland

Opening celebration Tuesday 5.8. at 6pm, all welcome!

Kuulumisia (a Finnish word play translating to ‘Tidings’ and ‘Ways of belonging’) exhibition introduces six internationally renowned Australian and Finnish contemporary artists, contemplating their personal relationship with place and time through objects, jewellery and painting. The artists involved work in diverse media and techniques, each with an innovative formal language, yet are connected through a sensitive ongoing observation and interpretation of their environment. 

The idea for Kuulumisia stems from the curator Inari Kiuru’s 2024 visit to her childhood hometown Lappeenranta. Returning after 40 years, and having migrated to Australia in 1996, Inari experienced a deep reconnection with her childhood landscape (external, as well as internal) and the South Karelian community. This joyful encounter sparked a desire to establish a wider, ongoing creative exchange and dialogue between Lappeenranta and Naarm/Melbourne, of which this exhibition opens. 

About the artists:

MARCOS GUZMAN // I am drawn to the challenge of finding a way to distil the emotional and social matter of our lives to a visual form. The group of necklaces I present are stills from a bigger picture, of minor narratives that go unnoticed in my experience of daily life, in the surrounds of my home city Naarm/Melbourne where I create, work, socialise, observe and live. @guzman_artist 

COURTNEY JACKSON // Snow Country Studies is a continuation of a project where artists were assigned discarded objects to be reimagined as functional or wearable artworks. I was given a retro plastic light, destroying and rebuilding it into a trio of brooches over a period of three months whilst living in a small ski resort in Japan. These pieces were shaped by the magical, icy landscapes surrounding me and preserved as wearable artificial landscapes. @courtneyjacksonjewellery 

CARA JOHNSON // The materials I work with help me to narrate ideas around the ways land is lived upon, and used, while trying to comprehend my own relationship to place. I see making as a sort of reprocessing, and mending, using just my hands or very basic tools, reworking until I make the material my own. I like the honesty of simple ancient processes like making string and carving wood. www.carajohnson.com.au 

INARI KIURU // I’ve lived in Australia for 25 years, but the core of my creative practice remains deeply Finnish: longing for a connection with nature. Collecting and processing discarded matter from city streets feels akin to picking berries, mushrooms or plants in the forest, providing a deep sense of belonging by connecting me with my ancestral heritage and seasonal ways of living. @ordinari_observer 

MICHAELA PEGUM // These works explore the idea that being is a process of intimate responsiveness with the lives and entities around us we often consider to be ‘other’. They embody relationship and transformation, in the growth of their material and their intuitively evolved form. Created by electroforming copper into textiles, a hybrid substance emerges that hovers between the known and the unknown. www.michaelapegum.com 

SHAUN TAN // I’ve been painting small landscapes, both as a routine studio practice – learning about light, shadow and colour – and as a way of connecting emotionally to my immediate surroundings, usually Australian suburban streets. These loose and unfussy paintings help me think about the particular experience of each time and place in a very intuitive way, as if constructing lasting memory from otherwise forgotten experiences. www.shauntan.net

Conversations between Latin American and European artists and jewellery makers

Interesting news from klimto2, an open blog where artists will work and discuss in teams, leading up to a contemporary jewellery symposium in Mexico City, April 2010. It is only just beginning, but there are already some interestingn photos there, and also makers' thoughts about belonging, one's "place", home, travelling and creating. Below is a message and introduction by Valeria Vallarta Siemelink, and the whole blog can be explored at http://www.grayareasymposium.org/blog

Welcome to Walking the Gray Area

"This is a blog where 40 artists and jewellery makers from Latin American and Europe carry out a dialogue about global mobility and contemporary jewellery. The dialogue will result in an exhibition to be presented in Mexico City, April 2010.

To know more on this project, read the introductory essay Take a Walk on the Gray Area. To see the project in action, click on the couple’s names at the right column of the blog to visit the couple’s individual dialogues. Visitors are fee to comment or make questions to the artists and moderator. All topics are open to respectful and responsible discussions.

Being this a global project, we are glad to see that this blog is being widely spread through the world. Please, let others know about us. And do not forget to click on our growing Cluster Map, at the bottom of the couples’ column on the right side of this page. You will be able to see where our visitors come from!

Enjoy!"

brunswick gold 2: my beloved rubbish

Two torn notes found on a garden bed, Albert Street, next to each other.
"Can you m..... the kids?" and "SKELETON!"

The toll free Family Helpline number is...

: )

* * *

There are two things I love to do while walking around: Picking up small discarded objects or natural materials, and documenting the random aesthetic of rubbish, rust and stains and the like, in which I often find immeasurable beauty and unexpected, interesting compositions and forms.

First, regarding "rubbish". What I get from studying it:

1.
Being on a lookout makes a simple walk around the block interesting: you never know what you are going to see or find. It keeps the imagination alive, and regularly moving around the neighbourhood, noticing the people, seasonal changes and happenings also brings a sense of "belonging". Something that I miss (or have always missed).

2.
It makes me concentrate on the here and now. Noticing and closely studying, perhaps then photographing, details of texture, colour and form is one of the best meditations I know. Everything else fades into the background for a while.

3.
The accidental, random clusters and palettes of colour are a source of inspiration which I regularly transform into my work, of designing and creating ornaments, objects, pictures, paintings. This is a good way of coming up with new associations, and breaking a habit of line or form (I tend to produce an alarmingly similar range of shapes over and over if I don't consciously attempt to break away from what my hand is used to).

4.
Somehow, I find that actively looking for detail, colour and form keeps the eye "alert" and helps in developing awareness of composition. I have noticed that often, after an intensive stint of rubbish hunting or object collecting (and then arranging and playing with the findings) I afterwards begin to notice people's faces and gestures, buildings and places, spatial relationships and patterns in a more acute and detailed way, too.

5.
It keeps me optimistic. Getting pleasure from small, abandoned morsels and incidental collisions of ordinary things enforces my core belief regarding life – that negative will always be balanced with positive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.





















shed, eclipse, silent sand



















"It's in the trees!"


Rubbish no more – now at Saver's shelves.
I want to make a giant neck piece out of these, layers and layers of beautiful curves, luminous layers and something black / red / grey mised into the structure …

PS.
Next / soon about found objects and the joy of arranging them.
In fact, I was thinking I should try and create & document one quick design per day, put together from shapes / objects / bits and pieces I find. Just to keep in the habit of making quick decisions, in order to not forget how to have fun with making, and to train myself to SIMPLIFY things. The daily "pieces" could be just sketches or visual plans, and the format a blog allows could be a good way of keeping track of these "random jewels". Maybe I could then get to make them into real pieces a bit later. Yay.
- IK