Outsider Art Festival launches a new collaboration with the City of Espoo this year. A dedicated OAF programme has been curated for Espoo’s cultural centres, with content shown at the Espoo Cultural Centre, Sellosali, Kannusali, the Children’s Cultural Centre Aurora and the WeeGee Exhibition Centre. A variety of events will take place around Espoo throughout the festival from 15 to 25 August 2024.
Valtteri Kleemola’s digital exhibition Valtteri’s Worlds at Länsimetro stations
Valtteri Kleemola’s digital exhibition Valtteri’s Worlds is a set of photographs created from self-portraits using social media tools and aesthetics. The exhibition will be spread along Länsimetro between Ruoholahti and Kivenlahti stations from 16 to 18 August 2024. Each station will feature a series of five humorous photographs by Kleemola, playing with gender roles and popular culture imagery. Some of the images have been edited using social media techniques that blur the boundaries between reality and image. In other images, Kleemola transposes her face onto different people’s bodies, dressing up different contexts and identities.
Events in Sellosali and Kannusali
Outsider Art Festival arrives at Sellosali with a bang, as the Finnish organ supergroup Salonen-Gustavson-Gröhn, celebrating the release of their new album “3 x 3”, will perform. The three-strong Hammond-electric organ ensemble will play groovy rhythm music with a really big organ sound. The concert on Friday 23 August at 19-20.30 is a unique opportunity to see the trio of organ virtuoso Kalle Salonen, Jukka Gustavson from Wigwam and Pekka Gröhn from J. Karjalainen’s band live. Buy tickets here. Pay-what-you-can tickets also available at the door.
Miika Turunen, host of Radio Helsinki’s Pertti Valinnat programme, together with Kalevi Helvetti, has curated an evening of three amazing bands at Kannusali on 24 August: Tamara Luonto, who play edgy and unpredictable pop songs, Kalevi Helvetti & Emola-Hatsina String Band, who combine avant-guitar, noise and psychedelic folk, and the melodic punk rock band Tarkkis. Miika Turunen’s DJ set starts at 18:00, and live music starts at 19:00. The event is a Kaikukortti event and pay-what-you-can tickets are available. Buy tickets here. Also on display in the Kannusali lobby throughout the autumn season is the new exhibition Dead Elvis – Always on my mind! by the creepy Kalevi Helvetti, which explores the biggest stars in popular music through the theme of death.
Other OAF events in Espoo
At the WeeGee exhibition centre, OAF brings an immersive Inside Outside Finland IOF cultural travel experience, opening on 15 August, where the visitor travels with VR glasses to Finnish outsider art sites all over the country. On Friday 16 August, the open-air exhibition space Amfi at the Espoo Cultural Centre will feature Sepi Kumpulainen, HX-Man and poet Sanni Purhonen. There will also be a programme for children, when the singer-songwriter Eeva Lusenius and Toni Välitalo, who is known from Pertti Kurikka’s Nimipäivät and others, will perform a workshop and a show at the Children’s Cultural Centre Aurora on 23 August.
