Sari Palosaari: Substrate

Substrate is an underlying base layer, a nourishing and carrying platform, a surface of life that both enables things and gives birth to the new. The exhibition unfolds through the concept by exploring different substrates and the exchange between entities. The sculptural works consist of open-ended spatial ensembles as well as those that have crystallized into more independent forms.

Palosaari thinks of her practice as laiduntaminen (Finnish), grazing. It is foraging for food for both body and mind. It can be both a leisurely and a painful act of loitering and lingering. It is not simply drifting from one place to another, but confronting life as it comes. For this exhibition, she grazed in her immediate surroundings as well as in the field of solar physics.

Sari Palosaari is a sculptor and laiduntaja, a grazer. In her northern substrate, a river dam, an ore mine, a cellulose boiler, and a steel mill were part of the same backyard with a cloudberry swamp, groundwater spring, crystal snowdrift, and a hanging orange midnight sun. Palosaari cultivates a culture of difference, creating spaces of exchange in-between separateness and entanglement.

Palosaari ́s sculptures are included in the collections of the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, the EMMA Museum of Modern Art, and the State Art Deposit Collection.

Forum Box

4.-27.9.2026

Tue-Sun 12.00-17.00

Free entry