Antti Laitinen, The Forest Within

Hämeenlinna Art Museum is delighted to announce the launch of The Forest Within by Finnish artist Antti Laitinen, which will run in the museum’s Lohrmann Building from 9 May until 18 October 2026. Alongside a selection of Antti Laitinen’s earlier works, The Forest Within also presents visitors with a series of new works created for this exhibition. The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, 9 May 2026, 11:00–17:00.

In Antti Laitinen’s art, the human hand shapes the natural world. His artworks assert a harmonious presence amidst a landscape, in which, through his intervention, something surprising and unexpected is always revealed. They are an invitation to view familiar natural scenes in an entirely new way. In recent years, forests have been a seemingly endless source of not only ideas but materials for the artist and served as a studio space for him too.

Much of Antti Laitinen’s art is characterised by a playfully experimental energy; the irrepressible desire to turn an impossible idea into reality. Everything from small shrubs and fully grown trees to an entire stretch of woodland have been disassembled, manipulated, rebuilt and rearranged by the artist. At times, this work involves sweaty manual labour that pushes the artist to test the limits of his own physical capabilities. The artist’s process unfolds slowly and deliberately and is most often captured in the form of photographic and video works, although he also works with sculpture, installation, performance and environmental art. Much of his work is based on the forests surrounding his rural home, but it also takes him further afield, both in Finland and to other countries around the world.

In preparation for The Forest Within, the artist based himself in Hämeenlinna in November 2025. His Tangle (2025, pigment print) was shot in the nearby Varikonniemi woodland when the ground was still bare and the first snow yet to arrive. The sphere the artist created for this artwork using tree branches will appear as part of the exhibition in the form of a kinetic sculpture.

Antti Laitinen (b. 1975, Raahe) trained at the Arts Academy in Turku and the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. His recent solo exhibitions include EMMA, the Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Wäinö Aaltonen Museum and several galleries internationally, and he has participated in many high-profile international group exhibitions. Antti Laitinen is also one of the artists featured in the Climate Clock public art trail, part of the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture programme.