The Life Story of the Sirkka Arte Biennale, 2017 (or 19?) - 2024
By Misha del Val


I was chilling on the sofa with my buddy, Rovaniemi-based underground artist and musician Pekka Kumpulainen, during the III Sirkka Arte Biennale in 2021. Around us in the the olkkari, there was a flow of people coming and going, filling their plates from a big paella dish at the table, and engaging in long, deep, and pointless conversations about art. Pekka had an open book in his hands, a monograph of artist Camilla Vuorenmaa, which I had bought on a recent visit to Helsinki, and we were both flicking through it. Pekka’s eyes were lit up with the pictures of Camilla’s colourful carvings of mighty, outlandish women. After a while, he straightened up, adjusted his spectacles with a knuckle, and declared with solemnity ‘she is just one of the best ever’. I smiled, nodded in agreement and pointed with my chin to the other side of the coffee table, ‘why don’t you just say hi, she’s just there’. The appreciation happened to be mutual, by the way.

That’s the spirit of the Biennale.

The Sirkka Arte Biennale is an art event we hold every second summer at our place in Sirkka, consisting of a curated art exhibition, a week-long residency for participating artists, and a sideshow program of live performances. The Sirkka Biennale kicked off in 2019, and since then more than 50 artists from Lapland, Southern Finland as well as international artists have been part of the project.

The Biennale was born, somewhat by a fluke, in its second edition in 2019. That’s right, in its second edition. That summer, Raisa and I wanted to celebrate our 80th birthday with our dear and near. The celebration would last several days, just to give those living far away an extra reason to come all the way to us, and spend quality time playing Fortuna and watching the Sun drifting unhurriedly across the skies. Since many of our guests happened to be very good artists, at some point it occurred to us ‘why not make the most of all that talent, ask our guests to bring a small artwork with them, and put up a little show at home, just for ourselves really?’ Our artist friends were happy with the initiative, and for our birthday celebration, in addition to the ubiquitous dining, dancing and drinking, we managed to put up quite a decent art exhibition, which we all cherished.

Just a few days before our gathering party, I realised that two years previous to it, almost to the day, we had celebrated one of those Staalon taideilta at our place with poetry, music, and a small art exhibition. We also knew that organising this kind of events was something we could have some more of in the future. And so, then and there, the Sirkka Arte Biennale (a cheeky name that encompasses the pompous term Biennale with the down-to-earth, hard-nosed Sirkka –and not Levi– toponym) was conceived. We made retrospectively that Staalon taideilta our first edition, and hence, the Biennale was born on its second occasion.

For the following Sirkka Biennale in 2021, we got a little bit more prepared. Firstly, we secured some funding from Taike so that the artists, and ourselves, could work properly and get paid for it. For the new edition, we extended the invitation not only to our close circle of friends, but also to those artists whose work we have seen, and really respected and enjoyed, and with whom we personally seem to have certain affinity, a good vibe going on (at the end of the day, it’s our home we are opening to people!!). That’s the criteria we are still using today to invite artists.

The main body of the artists we invited that year were part of a symposium called ISEAS (International Socially Engaged Art Symposium), which we attended the previous autumn in Äkäslompolo. At the symposium we spent an intense, hectic ten days living and working under the same roof with the bunch of artists, spending loads of time together, developing our common projects, having sauna, dancing, bickering, being silly, and so we ended up forging a close comradeship. We just brought the whole lot to the Biennale. That third Sirkka Biennale was immortalised in a kind of photo reportage –which can still be found on our website– by local artist Juha Tolonen.

From the beginning, the focus of the art event, in addition to the presentation and appreciation of top-notch art, has been to create a relaxed, safe space for artists to spend quality time together, share ideas, stories and artworks, and get to know each other in a low-key, supportive environment, harboured by the northern nature, and free from the sometimes fretting dynamics and pretensions of the art world out there.

We are very fortunate with our place in Sirkka, where most of the Biennale takes place. Our property is located in a 6000 square metres pocketed area surrounded by forest and crossed by the Höperojoki, less than 2 km from the shops and commodities of the village centre. The works of the exhibition during the Biennale are spread over the different spots and buildings on our property: the walls of the main house, our 150-year-old wooden Aitta-studio, the sauna, the puuvarasto, and throughout the yard outdoors. The exhibition space also includes a long-derelict Toyota Baleno serving as a video-watching cubicle. Last year, the exhibition was extended to the premises of Galleria Raekallio in Pöntsö. And in 2025, the V Sirkka Biennale –this time generously funded by Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Lapin rahasto– will be collaborating with Särestöniemen-museo in Kaukonen, using the ground floor of Reidar’s atelier to present a conversation between works of contemporary painters and those of our beloved master from Särestö.

Every year during the event, we visit Getsemane-atelier, Kalervo Palsa’s working studio and home in Kittila, and the Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä, which usually runs at the same time. We drive together, we have breakfast together. We have a kitchen roster. Artists contribute to the Biennale enormously with their presence. One of the highlights of the Biennale is the kuraattorikierros, where the whole group of artists (plus a few local mavericks) go together pikkuhiljaa around the exhibition. We savour and discuss every artwork on display. Artists may share many behind-the-scenes stories and insights about their artworks and art practices. For a few hours a day, we slow down and shower the works with our most precious gifts: our time and our collected attention. It feels tremendously satisfying as an artist, after having invested sooo much of yourself, of your brains and of your soul, into those works to finally witness the act of communication incarnate before you. This is usually when I get my payoff after all the work that goes into putting together an occasion like this, and also when let myself get stung by the chimera that it would be worthwhile to do it all over again.

Every second summer, during a Biennale gap year, that is, in a year when the Biennale is not on, we organise a dinner in which every artist who ever took part in the Biennale is welcome to attend. Last June, for instance, we gathered about a dozen types, from three different editions, in Kosmos, Helsinki. This way, artists from different years of the festival get an opportunity to know each other as well.

Anyway, hope to see you in the V Sirkka Biennale in 2025.
Long live Sirkka Biennale!