31.10. — 23.11.2025

The exhibition features electromechanical sculptures, mechanical time-lapse videos with actual plants, and a large dark installation of quantum space, which seeks, as a counterweight to the humanization of plants, to find something inhuman.

How does the inanimate appear alive? Do we interpret even the slightest movement as life? When do we begin to humanize this movement and project feelings and intentions onto it? How would we react to the vegetation around us if plants’ movements were ten times faster and observable? With these thoughts in mind, I have juxtaposed mechanical fake plants and cultivated real ones. I have refined mechanical motion into as life-like a groping as possible.

The exhibition is supported by Kone Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) and Finnish cultural foundation.

Petri Eskelinen (b. 1975) works widely within the field of sculpture. At times, his sculptures seek physical closeness with the viewer; at other times, they present fragile, lifelike movement independently through electromechanical means. Eskelinen is interested in the question of how and why we interpret movement as living and conscious. In time-lapse videos, living plants attempt to solve various staged challenges, at times appearing strikingly human-like. Eskelinen earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2006 from the Academy of Fine Arts. He has been awarded, among others, the Dukaatti Prize and the Finnish Artists’ Association Art Prize. His works have been exhibited in numerous gallery and museum exhibitions. He has also created several public artworks. Eskelinen’s works can be found in museum collections such as Kiasma, EMMA, The Serlachius Art Museum, and The Sara Hildén Art Museum.