Helsinki School

Exhibitions

Constellations of Thoughts

Niko Luoma | Jyrki Parantainen | Mikko Sinervo | Niina Vatanen

Opening: Saturday, 7 February, 3 - 6 pm

Exhibition: 7 Feb – 14 March 2026

Venue: Persons Projects, Lindenstr. 35, 10969 Berlin

Persons Projects is pleased to present Nothing Quite Happens, a group exhibition bringing together Zofia Kulik: KwieKulik, Katarzyna Kozyra, Janne Lehtinen and Paweł Książek. The exhibition explores how irony and performance can be used to question the structures of everyday life. Through staged situations, constructed identities and unusual encounters, the artists use humour as a form of critique. A banana becomes a political object; two artists disappear beneath buckets; celebrated intellectuals are transformed into obedient dogs. These actions raise questions of power, censorship and the individual’s position within society.

Jyrki Parantainen | Secular Limbo

Exhibition: 06 September - 25 October 2025

Venue: Persons Projects, Lindenstr. 35, 10969 Berlin

Persons Projects is proud to present Jyrki Parantainen’s solo exhibition, Secular Limbo, a poetic reflection on the alchemy between emotions and memory. Additionally, for Berlin Art Week, we will present a selection of lightboxes from his famous Fire series at Hallen 06 in the Wilhelm Hallen, Berlin.

Jyrki Parantainen is one of the most influential artists to emerge from the Helsinki School. As the leading professor of the photography department at Aalto University of Art, Design, and Architecture for over ten years, he played a crucial role in developing this unique educational platform into one of the most recognizable and influential departments worldwide. Parantainen’s current exhibition at Persons Projects introduces his most recent works from the Poetry of Circulation series, complemented by his sculptures and objects from the Between Heaven and Earth series. This collection of works carries on his fascination with developing conceptual approaches and working methods by combining and weaving various philosophical and historical themes into his art pieces.

The Art of Renewal

Ilkka Halso | Nanna Hänninen | Sandra Kantanen

Opening: Saturday, 28 June 2 - 6 pm

Exhibition: 28 June - 30 August 2025

Venue: Persons Projects, Lindenstr. 35, 10969 Berlin

Persons Projects is pleased to announce its summer exhibition, The Art of Renewal, bringing together works by the three Helsinki School artists Nanna Hänninen, Ilkka Halso, and Sandra Kantanen—whose conceptual approach to their photographic based practices has engaged deeply with ecological concerns over the past two decades. Through their unique interventions, each artist seeks to symbolically restore nature to what has been lost due to climate change, human neglect and urban encroachment. By altering images of real landscapes, they draw attention to pressing environmental issues, both present and future, blurring the line between the real and the imaginary. Their works use paradoxical situations to emphasize the reality of ecological degradation – barren landscapes infused with color, nature artificially preserved within protective structures, and untamed urban meadows transformed into surreal landscapes.