Muualla

“In my work I look for a humane message, I would like to give something to a tired person. I want to convey, for example, the passage of the summer light on the surface of the sea, the song of the waves, the reddish tones of the rocky islets and the burning of the sun, the warmth of the stones under the leisurely clouds.”

• Maija Lavonen, 1984

Maija Lavonen (1931–2023) was a pioneer of Finnish textile art, in whose hands textiles gained new dimensions as an art medium and spread into spatial works.

In 1968, Lavonen, who started his career as a clothing and printing fabric designer, founded Poppi Boutique, an avant-garde company operating at the interface of fashion and fine art, in Helsinki. Lavonen became a freelance textile artist in the 1970s, and became one of the leading names in the golden age of Finnish textile art in the 1980s with the works he executed in public spaces. The Ministry of the Interior’s textile work Nature as a source, which can be seen in news photos, is one of his most famous works.

Lavonen was a master of reduction, who had a unique skill to capture the harmony of nature and the movement of light in fabrics. As an artist, he progressed by experimenting and curiously looking for more and more precise ways of expression. Bold innovations, such as the inclusion of stone, steel and optical fibers in textile art, as well as a deep respect for the work of the hand, made him a role model for new generations of designers and artists.

Unique in its class, Maija Lavonen – Silent monuments highlights Maija Lavonen’s artist archive, which the Design Museum received in its collection in November 2023. In addition to archival material, the Architecture and Design Museum’s collections include more than twenty of Maija Lavonen’s unique textile works and printed fabrics. Works from other collections and from individuals are also borrowed for the exhibition.

Photo: Maija Lavonen participated with her optical fiber work in a joint exhibition at the Hélène Aziza Gallery in Paris in 2012. French photographer Xavier Lambours also participated in the exhibition, who took this photo of Maija Lavone in connection with the exhibition.