Anssi Kasitonni: Below Zero Finnish Art Award 2025

Chinese Whispers is an excellent metaphor for Anssi Kasitonni’s way of working, in which one image leads to another in surprising ways
Anssi Kasitonni won the fourth Below Zero Finnish Art Award.

During his London residency, which was part of the award, Kasitonni delved into the history of the Beaconsfield Gallery and discovered its past as a charitable institution and school for local poor children.

He found something else: an old graphic print depicting the grand pediment that once crowned the portico of a demolished part of the school.

Kasitonni decided to recreate the pediment as a large sculpture to be erected in the gallery. As the old image of the pediment lacked detail, he recreated its motifs, creatively coming up with ideas and freely developing his own sketches.

The work takes its name Gentle Means and Easy Tasks from Shakespeare’s Othello – the lines with which the writer seeks to provide guidance for successful pedagogy.

The artist himself understood that his creative method adapted a kind of Chinese Whispers idea. One idea led to another, soon to a third and then to a fourth. The completed sculpture eventually featured, among other things, an elephant, a car, a cat that mysteriously disappeared from the gallery, a button, a peacock, and a yellow submarine, inspired by The Beatles’ song.

The pediment work, modelled on the pediment of a London school, will be erected at Serlachius Headquarters in Mänttä – just a few dozen metres from where, in the late 1860s, the factory owner G.A. Serlachius himself opened his own school aimed at educating Mänttä factory workers. In this way, London pedagogy shakes hands with Mänttä school history.

The exhibition continues in the interior of the Serlachius Headquarters. It comprises mainly the Anssi Kasitonni oeuvre from recent years: paintings, sculptures and films.

Anssi Kasitonni’s exhibition is co-curated by David Crawforth, Naomi Siderfin, Pauli Sivonen and Tarja Väätänen.