At OAF, partnership means making things together: a partner does not stand beside us offering support, but takes part in deciding what the festival shows.
Autism Foundation Finland (Autismisäätiö) has been a partner of Outsider Art Festival for years, and the collaboration has never been limited to one exhibition or one summer. The Foundation has brought guides, employees and trainees to the festival – and curators who have taken part in deciding the programme and the selection of artists. That last part is the essential one. Nothing about us without us is not fulfilled by outsider artists’ works reaching the wall. It is fulfilled when they take part in deciding which works reach the wall.
The theme of the 2026 festival is HOPE, and at OAF hope means action. Outsider art is brought to the same stages, the same audiences and the same arenas as all other art – not to the margins, but into a shared cultural conversation. The collaboration with Autism Foundation Finland is one of the ways this happens. The festival opens up opportunities for the foundation’s clients to show their own art, share their expertise and build new connections in the arts and culture sector. At the same time, OAF employs people with partial work ability and people from various minority groups in artistic planning, event production and communications.
At the 2026 festival this takes concrete form. The visual arts working group includes Johanna Konttinen, who takes part in the activities of the art studio at the Foundation’s Vallila guidance and coaching services. Konttinen has helped decide the festival’s visual arts programme. The programme also features works by Riina Noro, who has worked at the Vallila art studio since 2013 and makes art ranging from textile sculpture to animation. The collaboration is coordinated by the Foundation’s cultural planner Synnöve Lindberg together with the clients’ support workers.
Aarteita / Treasures – Galleria Kirjo, Lapinlahden Lähde
This year the festival programme extends to the Venetsia building at Lapinlahden Lähde, where the Foundation’s Galleria Kirjo presents its autumn exhibition Aarteita (Treasures). The exhibition and the workshop held alongside it are part of the OAF programme, produced in collaboration between the festival and Galleria Kirjo.
What are treasures? The exhibition examines the question from the artists’ perspectives and invites us to consider whether treasures might be found in colours, shapes, stories, memories or feelings. The artists are Juho Arvila, Milla Göös, Johanna Konttinen, Hannah Sklar and Oliver Torres. Arvila’s Lego works take us into the world of Pokémon, Göös’s acorn motifs grow a small form into a meaningful symbol, Konttinen’s My Little Pony series celebrates friendship and acceptance, Sklar brings out the richness of individuality and girlhood through printmaking, and Torres builds precise, ornamental compositions from lines in which the process of making comes to the fore.
On Saturday 22 August, 13–15, the theme can be approached hands-on: the Treasures workshop is led by art educator Tuuli Rouhiainen. The workshop is free and open to all.
Guides at the Forest of Hope
The Foundation’s clients are also employed at the festival as event guides. On Friday 21 August, 14–18, the guides welcome visitors to the Toivon metsä (Forest of Hope) exhibition at Pertin Valinta X Tiketti Galleria. The guide is the person who meets the audience first – a role in which the field of outsider art is not the subject of the introduction, but the one giving it.
Practical information
Aarteita, Galleria Kirjo – Lapinlahden Lähde, Venetsia building, Lapinlahdenpolku 8, Helsinki. 6 August – 11 October 2026, Sat and Sun 12–16, and Fri 4 September and 9 October 10–14. During the festival weekend open Sat 22 and Sun 23 August 12–16. Treasures workshop Sat 22 August 13–15. Artist meeting Sat 19 September 14–15.
Toivon metsä, Pertin Valinta X Tiketti Galleria – Hakaniemenkuja 2, Helsinki. 20–30 August 2026, Wed–Fri 14–18, Sat 12–16. Free entry.
A warm welcome to Outsider Art Festival!
Read more: Aarteita / Treasures exhibition, OAF programme 2026, Toivon metsä exhibition, Galleria Kirjo | Autism Foundation Finland, Riina Noro, OAF inclusive curating, Accessibility information for Lapinlahden Lähde