Note · Mid-July 2026
[ku] 30/26 Art
Minttu Saarinen and the Future of the Exchange.
My pictures at the Kulttuurikonttori, the beginning of everything.
Here, chance always meets open doors. Perhaps that is the real insight of these first days.
Chance Had a Rhythm
Minttu, Janne and I were sitting in a café talking about our projects when a stranger spoke to us. Gabriel Landstedt, concert pianist from the USA, on his way to the train to Helsinki. He did not stay long, but our paths crossed, and we connected. The most beautiful footnote I only learned later: in those very days, Gabriel was playing his Finland concert at Ainola, the home of Jean Sibelius. And Sibelius was born here, in Hämeenlinna. So chance had a rhythm after all.
A Plan That Connects Two Cities
And then there is Minttu Saarinen, the central figure of my time here. An artist, and at the same time the driving force behind everything: she made this residency possible, and she always thinks one step ahead. Together we are now shaping the future of this exchange between the people, the artists and the cities of Celle and Hämeenlinna, twin towns since 1972. The beginning is made, this residency is the proof.
Why, in the end, more connects than divides, and how things will continue with Celle and Hämeenlinna, I have written down at length in the magazine.
Read the whole story in the magazine →