Exhibitions, events around the city, happening during the same week and in link with the fair!
Library Genesis
(Exhibition)
Opening: 3rd June
Dates: 4th June–31st July
Address: Rikhardinkatu Library, Rikhardinkatu 3, 00130 Helsinki
Info:
“First: The Library has existed ab aeternitate. That truth, whose immediate corollary is the future eternity of the world, no rational mind can doubt.”¹
Library Genesis is a site-specific group exhibition taking place at the Rikhardinkatu Library in Helsinki in June–July 2026. The artists featured in the exhibition are Sara Blosseville, Kryštof Kučera, Hikari Nishida, Frans Nybacka, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Heu Hsu, and Xiao Zhiyu. Library Genesis is curated by Uni Nissinen.
The concept of the exhibition is inspired by the idea of the universe as an architecture of information and the library as its metaphor. This allegory persists in art and culture, most notably in Jorge Luis Borges’s philosophical story “The Library of Babel” (1941). This novel depicts reality itself as an infinite labyrinthine library, made up of an endless number of bookshelves. The unifying element of Library Genesis is a furniture-like sculpture by carpenter Kryštof Kučera. Resembling a bookshelf, it holds the other art works in the exhibition. Together, they form a hybrid structure that generates its own internal semiotics.
Library Genesis takes place in the Rikhardinkatu Library, built in 1882. It is the first building in the Nordic countries designed specifically as a public library. Today, the historic library is profiled through art, housing an art lending service and a collection of more than 500 artist books. Library Genesis is on view at the base of the library’s distinctive spiral staircase, known as the “book tower.”
The exhibition is open during library hours from June 4 to July 31, 2026.
Join us for the opening on June 3 from 6–8 pm. at Rikhardinkatu 3! Heu Hsu will present a sound piece exploring the acoustics of the library hall. A limited edition of Library Genesis m² caps designed by Jaakko Pallasvuo will be on sale. Opening drinks will be provided by @1664blancfi.
The exhibition is supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Many thanks to specialist librarians Jyri-Petteri Volkoff and Chris Gurney.
¹ Borges, Jorge Luis, 1941. “The Library of Babel” (La biblioteca de Babel), in Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. New York: The Penguin Group, 1999, p.113.
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More than graffiti – Questions for 2026 by Tekla Inari
(Publication Launch)
Dates: 4th June, 16:00-17:30
Address: Bar Femton, Mäkelänkatu 15, Helsinki
Info:
Welcome to the launch of Tekla Inari’s bilingual publication More than graffiti – Questions for 2026. The work is a poetic exploration of contemporary experience through an open, fragmented narrative of questions, moving between memory, perception, and the uncertainties of the present .
Doors open at 16:00, and guests are kindly asked to arrive at the beginning. The programme starts at 16:15 and lasts approximately 45 minutes, including an introduction and two readings - one in Finnish and one in English.
A glass of wine will be served to the first guests, and the bar will be open throughout the event.
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PUBLICS COUPLING
(Exhibition, Event)
Exhibition dates: 12th May – 17th June
Address: PUBLICS, Sturenkatu 37-41, 00550 Helsinki
Shelter Press and Semiotext(e) exhibition is open at PUBLICS Wednesday – Friday between 12–16.00 and by appointment until June 17, 2026.
Event date: 4th June at 18.00 at PUBLICS (please arrive by 17:30)
SOUND PERFORMANCE 'Monivuotiset kasvit'
by Félicia Atkinson
https://www.publics.fi/calendar/felicia-atkinson-sound-performance/
Info:
PUBLICS COUPLING exhibition features an exhibition of selected publications by Semiotext(e) & Shelter Press. A curated selection of publications by Chris Krauss/Semiotext(e) and Bartolomé Sanson & artist Félicia Atkinson/(Shelter Press) runs alongside the coupling exhibition by artists Félicia Atkinson and Aino Lintunen at PUBLICS from May 13 – June 17, 2026.
This Coupling exhibition comprises records, publications, out of print editions, archival material from both publishers and a pop up shop for the duration of the exhibition.
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Jutro Juz bylo at Kalasataman Seripaja
(Gig, Exhibition)
Dates: 5th June, gigs at 20:00
Address: Vanha Talvitie 9 , Helsinki
https://www.instagram.com/kalasatamanseripaja/
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K, kumollaan (K, on its side)
(Exhibition)
Dates: 5 June – 5 July
Address: Asematie 7, Vantaa (20 min by train from Helsinki Central railway station)
Info:
The starting point for Maarit Bau Mustonen’s site-specific exhibition K, on its side is the
history of Galleria K as Vantaa’s main library and the artist’s childhood memories of the
space when it served as a children’s art center in the 1990’s. In the exhibition, material
spaces and spaces of memory – imagined, built, and written places – meet. The walls
enclose something that cannot be seen from the outside. Between the pages, things that are and are not fold into being. Art reveals and conceals inviting us to reach toward what
remains out of sight. The invisible becomes perceptible as part of the structure of the space, forming within it and upon it, turning it into form and holding it still, if only for a moment, making it possible, briefly, to enter into conversation with its ghosts.
(Text by Anna Jensen)
https://www.vantaantaiteilijaseura.fi/galleria-k/
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