Aalto ARTS Student Show 2024

Product and Form

Gallery 1: Main Lobby 108a

For the past ten years, the Product and Form course has provided Master's students in design an  opportunity to delve into design that is as timeless as possible and reflects the built environment and architecture.

The main challenge is to strip the student-developed product concept of all excess and unnecessary elements. The result is uncompromising product concepts with carefully considered material choices and details.

The course has collaborated with companies such as Bang & Olufsen, Iittala, Meeko, and Genelec. Key components of the course include interesting excursions, visits from professional designers, course literature focusing on aesthetics and form-giving, weekly reflections centered on the creative ideation process, and one-on-one guidance meetings.

This exhibition is a compilation of projects carried out over the past ten years. The course is run by Lecturer in Industrial Design, Simo Puintila.

Permanence is an Illusion

Greta Ballschuh, Master's student in Contemporary Design

Gallery 1: Main Lobby 108a

These sculptures are made from silica sand that is usually used in metal casting. The fragile objects are made at the foundry with wooden moulds, held together by a specific glue. Once the transient sand furniture are not needed anymore they will return to the foundry and function again for metal casting. Could furniture only last as long as needed?

MA Course work in Costume Design: Performing Arts and Film

Gallery 2: FE Lobby 105

Master-level costume design work from courses held in 2023–2024, from the ‘Costume Design: Performing Arts and Film major. Aalto University’s degree programme in costume design at the Department of Film is the only one of its kind in Finland. The costume design programme celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2023. 

Interplay of cultures

Gallery 3: LQ Lobby 102

The course explores the environmental, economic, cultural and social impacts of architecture and urban planning in a global context. The exhibition presents student projects and insights created during journeys into new cultures. How could the professional identity of architects develop a strong sense of global responsibility? 

Master's Theses in Photography 

Gallery 4: V1 Gallery L216

The exhibition presents the artistic research of a selection of Aalto University Master’s students majoring in photography at the Department of art and media. Reflecting the expanded practices in the field of photography, the projects and concepts are rendered in light, time and matter.

Multispecies Futures for the Baltic Sea 2050

Kaisa Roover, Master’s student in Creative Sustainability

Gallery 5: V2 Gallery G204

Finland has an official maritime spatial plan, which outlines significant areas for underwater natural and cultural values, as well as potential areas for energy production, fishing, aquaculture, shipping and tourism. The ‘Multispecies Futures for the Baltic Sea 2050’ project proposes a multispecies approach to developing the plan further, involving those who are still missing — including more than human stakeholders.

Ceramics Laboratory

The Bridge 

The course explores different themes from artifacts or surface design to material research. In spring 2024, students were asked to design and produce a series of ‘Building Blocks’. Students pushed the idea of a simple brick into a single experimental element that could be used for building something larger by repetition. The materials used were traditional ceramics masses from Finnish brick factory earthenware to stained porcelain, and also unfired geopolymers including recycled ceramic rejects were experimented.

‘with this…’

Situated and participatory practices of art education MA students

Gallery 6:  FK Lobby 206

The exhibition ‘with this…’ focuses on the questions of being with and acting with, embedded in the situated and participatory practices of art education. The chosen projects are situated in the intersections between artistic, pedagogical and theoretical as is characteristic for Art education major. The exhibition brings forth course projects by art education master students and artistic components of theses by current and recent graduates.

ELO film screening

Gallery 7: F Lobby 005 screening room

A selection of both BA and MA student films made in 2023 by Aalto University’s ELO Film School. Finnish film education has reached the mature age of 65 years. We can proudly say that film education in Finland began among the first in Europe! 

Master’s Theses from the Department of Architecture

Gallery 8: K Corridor 010

A selection of Master’s Theses 2023 from the Department of Architecture. At Aalto University’s Department of Architecture you can study architecture, urban studies and planning, landscape architecture and interior architecture. 

Wood Program 30 years

Gallery 8: K Corridor 010

The Wood Program challenges students to experiment with wood and to study wood architecture and industrial construction through a hands-on, one-year program. The academic year includes lectures, excursions, design and build assignments, culminating in an experimental wooden building to be built during the spring semester. This year, the program is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and it is reaching out to society both locally and globally in many impactful ways — from small Finnish town squares to communities in Argentina.

This exhibition is a compilation of projects carried out over the past 30 years. The program is run by Pekka Heikkinen, Professor of Wood Architecture.

Spatial design: Flexible and adaptive construction

Gallery 8: K Corridor 010

Spatial design is a third year course in interior architecture. The theme of this year’s course was flexible and adaptive construction. The students created innovative solutions for the Katajaharju area in Helsinki, where the renovation of 1960-1970’s-era apartment buildings is considered too expensive. The students collaborated with MA students from the Architecture Wood Studio. The course is led by University Lecturer Esa Vesmanen and Interior Architect Milla Björk-Vartiainen.

Experience: Change

Gallery 9: Kipsari Lobby Q 019

In the ‘Experience: Change’ course, students design campaign-like communications concepts. In spring 2024, the course focused on the theme of information influencing. The course is part of the bachelor’s degree studies of Visual Communication Design in the Department of Art and Media. It is led by Lecturer Tarja Nieminen.  

A selection of VCD Graduate projects

Enter the Greenhouse: Outgrown & Overgrown!

Gallery 9: Kipsari Lobby Q 019 

Thesis projects from both Master's and Bachelor’s graduates in visual communication design. The exhibition invites you to explore research results around topics ranging from information design, visual narratives and branding to editorial design, embodied practices and type & written language. The exhibition concept presents the University as a greenhouse that supports students’ ideas, encourages them to experiment, research, and grow. But the greenhouse will eventually be outgrown and overgrown as the students take their next steps.

Mechanical Tree – Wool Canopy Unit

Andrzej Tarasiuk, Master’s student in Creative Sustainability

Väre Foyer 

Research suggests that the properties of wool seem to align with those of foliage in its ability to manage heat and moisture as well as trap sound and pollution. The ‘Mechanical Tree – Wool Canopy Unit’ brings together artistic, scientific, design and commercial dimensions, sparking conversation about how we are tackling the lack of green spaces in cities.

Mycelium + Wild Rice: Using familiar resources to introduce biomaterials

Gabriela Farias, Master’s student in Creative Sustainability

Väre Foyer  

This project works at the intersection of biomaterial making, community engagement, and place-based design. It explores mycelium-based composites and how to introduce the concept of these novel materials to those unfamiliar with them, with the goal to expand ideas of sustainability. The exhibit will showcase innovative substrates used for mycelium bio-composites, new ways of making shapes with the material, and a manual that guides organizers through this process from beginning to end.

Kitchens to Kinships: Understanding the hidden role of social care through stories of women in the ecosystem of a textile craft community in India

Pragati Singhal, Master’s student in Creative Sustainability

Väre Foyer  

This thesis aims to look at the interconnections between women's hidden social care and the sustenance of a craft and community within a textile craft community India, thereby exploring alternate meaning of empowerment from women’s context, using kitchens as a starting space.