Laura Põld in Helsinki, Finland
3rd Helsinki Biennial, Finland
8 June – 21 September 2025
The Helsinki Biennial 2025 brings together 37 artists and collectives on Vallisaari Island, in Esplanade Park, and at HAM Helsinki Art Museum. Organised for the third time, the theme of this year’s biennial is Shelter: Below and Beyond, Becoming and Belonging. The curators of Helsinki Biennial 2025, Blanca de la Torre and Kati Kivinen, drew inspiration from the protected Vallisaari Island, which has been preserved from human habitation for decades. Helsinki Biennial 2025 explores the significance of shelter and turns the gaze towards non-human nature. In the works, the focus shifts from humans to animals, water, plants, insects, minerals, and other living agents and their role as contributors to our planet’s well-being.
For her participation, artist Laura Põld’s work is shown at the HAM Helsinki Art Museum and at Vallisaari Island.
For her presentation at the HAM Helsinki Art Museum the installation consists of ceramic sculptures and four wool pile tapestries handmade by the artist and her associates from woollen yarns dyed with Estonian plants. Külmking is a mythological figure believed to be the protector of forests and peatlands in Estonian folklore. The wool pile tapestries on the wall depict a faceless figure in cowboy boots intertwined with the sinuous branches of a rose bush and a lithe female figure. The shapes of the ceramic sculptures reiterate the thorny forms of the tapestries. The sculptures laid out on the hand-tufted tapestry are suggestive of rugged, mossy terrain and the twisting roots of northern woodlands. Intersecting softness with hardness, Põld’s installation evokes life’s unpredictability and reminds us of our responsibility to protect those who are most vulnerable.
For her presentation at Vallisaari Island, Põld has created large-scale ceramic tree trunks, whose branches shelter mushroom-like forms, which serve as water receptacles for local birds to drink and bathe.
Laura Põld (born 1984) is an Estonian artist who lives and works in Vienna. She studied Ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Painting at the University of Tartu, and Sculptural Conceptions and Ceramics at the University of Art and Design Linz. She is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Installation and Sculpture at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and is a co-curator in the 2024 QMA Artist Collective, Vienna. Põld is interested in traditional craft and combines textiles and sculptures in her installations to address themes of community, caring and material culture. Her work has been exhibited at LOOK! gallery, Riga; MO museum, Vilnius; Tromsø kunstforening; AV17 Gallery, Vilnius; Kunstverein Eisenstadt; Kogo Gallery, Tartu; Austrian Cultural Forum Warsaw; Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga; Titanik Gallery, Turku; Kommod, Vienna; Halle für Kunst Steiermark, Graz; Kunstraum Memphis; Gallery Tallinn and Studio #211, ISCP, New York.
This is the her first collaboration with Phileas. This project results from a research trip to Vienna by curator Blanca de la Torre in May 2024 at the invitation of Phileas.
Studio Portrait, Laura Põld. Photo: Lea Sonderegger