Five Decades of Design and a Camera Obscura Experience at Kimmo Pyykkö Art Museum in 2027

The Kimmo Pyykkö Art Museum in Kangasala will present two major solo exhibitions in 2027. Ritva‑Liisa Pohjalainen’s retrospective Touch of Beauty runs from 30 January to 23 May, followed by Marja Pirilä’s camera obscura survey Light & Darkness from 12 June 2027 to 9 January 2028. Both shows will occupy the museum’s first and second floors.

Touch of Beauty gathers five decades of Pohjalainen’s work, from 1974 fashion designs to recent glass and steel sculptures. The display maps her transition from a prolific fashion designer. She produced thousands of women’s garments for leading Finnish labels before turning to art glass, ceramics and silver jewellery, and the exhibition covers that shift comprehensively, museum director Nina Koskinen said.

The exhibition includes showy art-glass pieces, evening gowns, miniature models, rya rugs, ceramics and large steel works. Some glass objects were produced in collaboration with master glassblowers in Murano. Pohjalainen has also shown steel pieces at Habitare in 2024. She described a throughline in her practice: "The subject changes, but creativity remains. It flows from one material to another. Each new material teaches and opens the way to new ideas." Her honours include the Kaj Franck Design Prize (2004), the Golden Clothing Tree (1998) and an honorary doctorate from the University of Eastern Finland (2010).

Marja Pirilä’s Light & Darkness centres on the camera obscura technique that has shaped her work since the Interior/Exterior series in 1996. She has converted rooms and large buildings into camera obscuras, recording overlapping interior and exterior images in single long exposures to suggest how people merge with their surroundings. The exhibition pairs these photographic series with three-dimensional camera obscura installations created with photographer Petri Nuutinen and an immersive soundscape by musician Tapani Rinne.

The Pirilä display also presents the Light Diaries series, images made on blank notebook pages, alongside the video installation Light Notes (2025), a contemplative piece about light and presence. Pirilä, a 1986 graduate of the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now Aalto University) whose work has been exhibited internationally, has received several major awards including the State Prize for Photography (2000) and the Alfred Kordelin Prize (2020).

The shows follow the museum’s recent programme, which included Emmi Kallio’s Myrsky exhibition in 2026 the museum's 2026 Emmi Kallio exhibition.