Emma Helle, Tamara Piilola ja Pia Sirén: Garden of the Future

Garden of the Future brings together three artists whose work addresses questions of materiality, corporeality and our relationship with nature.

Sculptor Emma Helle (b. 1979) highlights marginalised figures of art history with her rich and joyful ceramic sculptures. Tamara Piilola (b. 1977) is known for her exuberant nature paintings that transport the viewer to a sweet later summer afternoon, whilst Pia Sirén (b. 1982) creates site-specific environments often built from plastic tarpaulins and scaffolding.

In the garden created in Malva by the three artists, our romantic perception of nature intersects with an alternative view of the future, where nature is constructed from man-made materials.

Emma Helle (b. 1979) is a Finnish sculptor known for her exuberant ceramic and wood sculptures that draw their motifs from art history. Helle graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2007, and her works can be found in the collections of, among others, the Finnish National Gallery, the Sara Hildén Art Museum and EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.

Visual artist Tamara Piilola (b. 1977) has studied painting at the Arts Academy of Turku University of Applied Science, the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, and the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. Light and pure colours are at the centre of Piilola’s nature-themed paintings. Piilola was awarded the Didrichsen Pro Arte Prize in 2016, and her works can be found in the collections of, among others, the collections of the State Art Commission, the Sara Hildén Art Museum and the HAM Helsinki Art Museum.

Pia Sirén (b. 1982) creates installations that adapt our experience of nature: “the idea is that I build something beautiful using the most everyday and plain construction materials. Built nature raises questions about a person’s relationship with their environment and the artificiality of modified landscapes.” Sirén graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2012, and her works have been seen in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad.