Helsinki Design Week

✨Alia Ali: In Light of…

In Light of… is the first solo exhibition in the Nordic region by internationally acclaimed artist Alia Ali. The immersive presentation unfolds as a rich weave of patterns, symbols, and narratives.🪐
Alia Ali’s works celebrate collectivity, connectivity, and the circulation of ideas across cultures and geographies.
📣On show at Kunsthalle starting 20 August!

Programme during Helsinki Design Week:

⭐️Guided tour for children:
Sat 29 Aug at 1–2pm

⭐️Guided tours:
Sat 29 Aug at 3pm, in Finnish
Tue 1 Sept at 4pm, in English
Wed 2 Sept at 4pm, in Finnish
Sat 5 Sept at 1pm, in English
Sat 5 Sept at 3pm, in Finnish

💫Alia Ali: In Light of…
🗓️Tue-Fri 11am – 6pm, Sat-Sun 11am – 5pm
🎟️20€ / 12 € / Museum Card. Free entry for children under 18 years.
📍Kunsthalle, Nervanderinkatu 3, 00100, Helsinki

📸
1. Mata, BATIK, Alia Ali. 2025
2. Päivi Niemi

🫟KAAOSSTUDIO is a gym for creativity skills — a place where imagination is amplified and mistakes become raw material.

This August, the former atelier house of artist Birger Carlstedt opens to the public for the first time and begins a new chapter as the home of KAAOSSTUDIO.⭐️

📣Join us during Helsinki Design Week for Open Studios on 28 August or 4 September, or celebrate our opening with us on 29 August!

Built in collaboration with the Amos Anderson Fund, KAAOSSTUDIO invites individuals, organisations and communities to practise creativity as a vital human capability.

KAAOSTUDIO at the Open Studios
Fri 28 August, 4-7pm
Fri 4 Sept, 4-7pm

KAAOSSTUDIO opening party
29 August, 6-10pm
Registration required!

📍Itäinen rantatie 14, Nuottaniemi, Espoo

KAAOSSTUDIO Amos Andersons fond Helsinki Design Week

📸 Kati Rapia

Encounters, Design & Bubbles – OPEN HOUSE

Vepsäläinen Business showroom takes a head start to Helsinki Design Week, by opening their showroom doors already on the morning of Wed 26 August! 🚪

💫Check out the most beautiful design innovations for public spaces, browse fabric novelties from Finland and Europe and meet colleagues. Vepsäläinen Business

🫧Encounters, Design & Bubbles – OPEN HOUSE
🗓️26 August & 2 September
⏰8.30am – 7pm
📍Vepsäläinen Business showroom,
Yrjönkatu 12-14, 00120, Helsinki

📸
1. Wilderness Hotel Saariselkä, Restaurant 2025
2. Office Remion, Tampere 2025
3. Wilderness Hotel Saariselkä, 2025
4. Wilderness Hotel Saariselkä, 2025
5. Office Remion, Tampere 2025

The Design Diplomacy series continues with Ireland! 🇮🇪
Meet the speakers Brett O’Mahony and Ananya Tanttu:

🔸Brett O’Mahony is the Creative Director at Studio Saol, a strategic design & futures office practice based in Limerick, Ireland. Her background spans digital experiences & advertising, branding, and design for social innovation, shaped through work in Ireland and the UK with organisations including Burberry, Apple, Google, and aid organisations like Humanity Crew.

🔸Ananya Tanttu is a Finnish visual artist currently studying for a MFA in time and space arts at the Academy of Fine Arts (University of the Arts Helsinki). Her practice, into which she weaves text and elements of installation, is primarily lens-based. Since 2013, Tanttu’s works have been exhibited in several solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad, and her works can be found in both private and public collections. She has also been a part of the core team behind Lokal Gallery, a Helsinki-based concept gallery, since founding in 2012.

Reserve your seat now at helsinkidesignweek.com!

Design Diplomacy - Ireland
🗓️4 September
⏰12–2 pm
📍Pohjoisranta 2 F 20 (4.kerros), 00170 Helsinki

🇮🇪 – Since 2021, the official residence of the Embassy of Ireland is located at Pohjoisranta 2. In addition to serving as the private residence of the ambassador, the residence plays an important role as an entertainment and networking venue for the embassy. Pohjoisranta 2 residential block was designed by architect Kirsti Sivén. It is located on the site of a former to***co factory and the design project entailed a great deal of balancing between contemporary demands, respect for the existing setting, and the requirements of the Helsinki town plan. The residence, a contemporary venue for representing Ireland and its craft and design heritage, features stunning views over Pohjoissatama harbour.

The Making of Modern Living🩶

Held during Helsinki Design Week, the exhibition The Making of Modern Living invites visitors to Artek 2nd Cycle to experience the atmosphere of Artek’s very first store, which opened in 1936 on Helsinki’s Fabianinkatu.🚪

The Artek store was not merely a place to buy furniture, but also a cultural space. It embodied the ideals of Aino and Alvar Aalto, Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl: the fusion of art and technology, and the promotion of a modern way of living. Since then, Artek has remained a fixture of Helsinki’s street life, offering a compelling and tangible expression of the founders’ vision. 🪐

We invite you to step back in time.

🗓️28 August – 4 September
⏰11am – 6pm
📍Artek 2nd Cycle, Pieni Roobertin katu 4–6, 00120, Helsinki

Artek Artek Helsinki artek2ndcycle
Helsinki Design Week

Photos:
1.The Making of Modern Living, credits: Artek2. 2.Fabianinkatu store, credits: Artek Collection / Alvar Aalto Museum, photographer: Heinrich Iffland

The wait is over…
Ticket sales and registration are now OPEN!💥

PechaKucha Night, Design Diplomacy, HDW Meeting Points, Design Market workshops, guided tours, Open Studios — pick your favorites or book them all!

🧢Head over to helsinkidesignweek.com and reserve your spot today.⛳️

Re - Think Re - Form exhibition WE💥

The next Re-Think Re-Form exhibition will be held in collaboration with Primo Kitchen P R I M O during Helsinki Design Week Helsinki Design Week

The theme of the Re-Think Re-Form exhibition at Helsinki Design Week 2026 is WE. The exhibition explores design, craftsmanship, and artistic practice through the perspectives of collectivity and interaction. WE does not refer only to collaboration between the curated artists, but to a broader whole in which materials, processes, makers, users, exhibition architecture, and the environment are intertwined. Individual authorship does not disappear, but enters into dialogue with others—forming a space that becomes a shared whole. WE also emerges through encounters—through the interaction between the works, the space, and the viewer.

⭐️Curators: Piia Jalkanen, Anna Pirkola, Susan Elo, Anniina Dunder-Berg and Päivi Keski-Pomppu

🗓️29.8. — 4.9.2026
📍 Lapinlahdenpolku 8D
Re - Think Re - Form exhibition WE
Primo Kitchen, Lapinlahti
Re - Think Re - Form

Pictures:
1. Re - Think Re - Form WE
2. Halftoned by Ossi Karvonen, picture: Henri Vogt
3. Olennaiset by Iina Kettunen, picture: Unto Rautio
4. Relove by Ville Auvinen and Aino Michelsen, picture: Henri Vogt
5. Home Process Riikka Peltola
6. “Palli” by Walter Mahlberg
7. Metsikkö by Maija Puoskari, picture: Aino Huhtaniemi

Reconnecting with the Urban Dark⚫️

Darkness Library Suomenlinna is a wooden pavilion that gathers and shares residents’ site-specific knowledge of darkness in Suomenlinna. Developed within the Caring Commons research project, it explores how creative practices can strengthen human–nature relationships and contribute to sustainability transformation.

Join us to ask questions like: “Can darkness be described as site-specific?” or “What emerges in a place because of its darkness?”🌑

🗓️1 - 6 September
⏰10am – 8pm
📍Suomenlinna B 5 (Levyhalli), 00190, Helsinki
Free entry!

The exhibition hall Levyhalli is approximately 600 m walking distance from the main ferry pier in Suomenlinna and is accessible with wheelchairs and strollers.

🖋️Illustration on the first picture by Anika Merten.

Discover a softer kind of design at the Design Market.☁️

✨Visit the Joutsen stand to explore luxurious bedding and remarkably lightweight down styles, crafted to bring warmth and comfort to everyday life, both indoors and out.

For 90 years, Joutsen has combined Finnish down expertise with lasting quality and thoughtful design. 🤍

Come and find something special to take home from the Design Market!💫

Joutsen Finland Oy

🗝️Communal workspace and services for creatives

TiLA! is a joint effort between Aalto University and the City of Espoo for all creative professionals.⭐️ It combines Aalto University’s research, art and entrepreneurship excellence with the entrepreneurial and cultural ecosystem of the City of Espoo.

Aalto University is the largest and most international creative community in Finland, with a strong design legacy. At TiLA!, we offer affordable workrooms and shared workspaces as well as support services for creatives. We warmly welcome you to join us in opening a new, communal space and service concept!🫂

TiLA! Opening
📆Fri 4 September
⏰3:30–6:00 pm
📍TiLA! Vuorimiehentie 2 A, 1st floor, Otaniemi, 00076 AALTO, Espoo
🖊️Registered Only

Aalto-yliopisto Aalto University Centre for Radical Creativity

📸 Mikko Raskinen and Adam Tickle / Aalto University