Home - Echoes and Images of Karelia

The exhibition “Home – Echoes and Images from Karelia” asks what it feels like to lose one’s home and how the memory of a lost home lives on with people. After the war, the Karelian evacuees often heard the phrase “adapting to new places of residence.” How can one adapt to their home, and where is the true home then? After the war, not only houses but also emotions, memories, and experiences were rebuilt.

The exhibition is brought to you by composer and musician-researcher Anne-Mari Kivimäki; photographer and researcher Hanna Koikkalainen; and comic artist Hanneriina Moisseinen. Additionally, the exhibition features a sound piece by composer Eero Grundström. The exhibition is curated by curator Ilkka Kuhanen. The works in this exhibition have been displayed in various locations across Finland and Russia. This time, the “sounding photo exhibition” has been brought to Lahti, where the legacy of Karelian evacuees remains strong. The exhibition contents have been integrated into the Lahti landscape through participatory methods.

As a result of multidisciplinary collaboration, a meandering visual-musical ensemble emerged, poetically reflecting on evacuation, wartime, leaving home, current realities in Russian villages, Karelian culture, and new life in evacuation locations. The exhibition combines old and new images of Karelia, memories of evacuees, and natural elements collected from Karelia. The waters of the home lake become sacred, and the art of pleating is passed down from generation to generation.

“We cried, hugged.
It felt like saying goodbye. For many,
it was the final departure.
After the train left, it felt so empty.
The village was never the same again.”

Anne-Mari Kivimäki

Anne-Mari Kivimäki (b. 1976) is one of the most intriguing musicians of today, whose toolkit includes crackling archive recordings, various bellows instruments, and a composer’s mind seeking new sounds. She conducts the Lakkautettu kylä orchestra, tours with the experimental ethno-techno band Suistamon Sähkö, and performs solo. Kivimäki has represented Finland at international festivals and concert stages since 1996. She won the Artist of the Year award at Finland’s first Ethnogala in 2017, and her album “Lakkautettu kylä” has received awards and nominations in both Germany and Finland, including an Emma nomination, Folk Music Album of the Year, and the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. The album reached the prestigious World Music Charts Europe, peaking at number 10.

Hanna Koikkalainen

Hanna Koikkalainen (b. 1980, Imatra) is a photographic artist whose works explore collective memory, memories, landscape change, folklore, nature relationships, and stories. Her photo book “Raja” (2016), which deals with Finnish and Russian border villages, was chosen as the Most Beautiful Book of the Year.

Hanneriina Moisseinen

Hanneriina Moisseinen is a comic artist with a background in visual arts and a Master of Arts, who has been awarded the State Prize for Comic Art, the William Thuring Foundation Prize of the Finnish Art Society, and the Akseli Gallen-Kallela Recognition Award from the Kalevala Society. She has published several comic books on unique themes situated at the intersection of personal and collective memory. Examples include “Isä” (2013) and “Kannas” (2016), which has been translated into five languages. Moisseinen’s works have been exhibited in art galleries and museums in about twenty different countries, including Kiasma and the Mänttä Art Festival in Finland. Her works are part of the collections of the State Art Collection and the Saastamoinen Foundation.