Areas of expertise
Biography
I am an art historian with a long experinece as an art field professional, especially in curating art exhibitions and directing art institutions. My latest position before academic research was director of Kunsthalle Helsinki (2006-2013).
I received PhD in art history at the University of Helsinki (Doctoral Program of History and Cultural Heritage, Faculty of Art) in 2019. My groundbreaking docotral dissertation Artistically Regenerating and Politically Topical - Exhibitions of Kunsthalle Helsinki in 1928-1968 examined the Kunsthalle as a definer of art in the inner battles of the art field. It opened up the relationship of the exhibitions and the art field to the exercise of political power. The connections between art, power and politics were examined as “state political exhibitions” and as instruments of politics. The research also highlighted the fierce contest for cultural dominance of the Cold War blocs in the form of exhibitions in the Finnish art field.
As a postdoctoral researcher I have continued researching realtionships between art, power and politics. In my current post doc project Mission Finland - Cold War Cultural Diplomacy at the Crossroads of East and West I examine connections between the Finnish art field and the cultural diplomacy of the Cold War. My reserch deals with international art exhibitions in Finland organized by both superpowers, their allies as well as some neutral countries. My case studies examine the exhibitions as political tools from a perspective of centre-periphery in connection to the power struggle in and outside of the art field.
Teaching
2018 onwards, lecturer in art history, Open University of Helsinki.
2021 lectures on cultural Cold War at Finnish art field, Univeristy of Turku.
Research
In 2021 I began as a postdoc researcher at the University of Turku in a project Mission Finland - Cold War Cultural Diplomacy at the Crossroads of East and West financed by the Academy of Finland.
The project studies foreign cultural diplomacy in Finland during the Cold War thorugh a range of cultural and informational activities (cultural events, art exhibitions, the distribution of media conetent) promoted by the USA, the UK, the Soviet Union and their allies. The project emphazises the domestic and international cultural organizations and individuals who turned the political objectives defined by the governments into everyday experience for ordinary Finns.
In the project I examine connections between the Finnish art field and cultural diplomacy of the Cold War. My research deals with international art exhibitions in Finland organized by both superpowers, their allies as well as some neutral countries. My case studies examine art and some design exhibitions as political tools and forms of soft power in the battle of hearts and minds between the Eastern and Western blocs. Additionally, one of my case studies examines the cultural relations between neutral Switzerland and Finland in the context of the Cold War. I focuse on contents of the exhibitions, changes in their contents over time and the impact of the exhibitions on the Finnish art and art field by highlighting the state political mechanism operating behind the exhibitions. Since the Cold War exhibitions circulated often in the Nordic countries, they will also be examined in the Nordic context. I will place the cultural Cold War battle in the "peripheric" Scandinavia and Finland into the core of cultural diplomacy of the superpowers.