Uniarts Fest fills the Sörnäinen campus with art on Saturday, 17 September – the arts festival’s programme features concerts, performances and an art sale
Uniarts Fest is Uniarts Helsinki’s very own festival where young artists get the chance to showcase their talent. The arts festival will be organised on the Sörnäinen campus for the first time in autumn 2022.
Uniarts Fest will offer a versatile cross-section of students’, teachers’ and alumni’s talent on Saturday, 17 September, on the recently-completed Sörnäinen campus.
Various art forms and styles – from choral singing to fine arts – are featured in the festival programme, and visitors are also treated to fearless combinations of different artistic disciplines. The festival gives the public a low-threshold, admission-free opportunity to enjoy the most interesting art being created in today’s Helsinki.
The programme also includes discussions, where prominent influencers from various fields share their thoughts on the theme legacy.
Open house on the new campus
Uniarts Fest will be organised on Uniarts Helsinki’s new Sörnäinen campus for the first time this year. Completed in autumn 2021, the campus consists of two architecturally and historically interesting buildings: The Theatre Academy’s main building Kookos and the new facilities named Mylly built for the Academy of Fine Arts.
During the day-long festival, visitors get the chance to participate in guided tours and access facilities that are not usually open for the public.
A programme filled with today’s most interesting art
The festival takes over the entire Sörnäinen campus, and visitors can enjoy a day of admission-free events from 11 in the morning until late in the evening. Entry is free to all events of the festival programme.
Music enthusiasts are treated to a diverse concert selection. The music portion of the programme includes a concert by the Freshman Choir, consisting of first-year students of the Sibelius Academy, which will perform choral works on the stairway of the Mylly building. In the performance Huiluluuppaus (Flute Loop), Jaakko Arola incorporates electronic effects and field recordings into the sounds of a wide range of woodwind instruments. The backbone of his compositions are self-made instruments and recordings of Finnish nature sounds. PAJUH, on the other hand, offers an eclectic mix of minimalistic jazz played on saxophone, funk and Iranian folk music.
The party band for the evening will be Marius & Finnhits Explosion, which will make the festival audience dance with its updated versions of Finnish evergreens. Their performance will be both a rock ’n’ roll show and a never-ending Midsummer dance!
The kid-friendly music performance Muovipullopostia (Message in a Plastic Bottle) deals with the issue of plastic waste ending up in the world’s oceans and calls out to children to help solve the problem. The performance is aimed at anyone over 4 years of age, and it reminds the audience that messages in plastic bottles do not belong in the ocean.
Those interested in fine arts can go and see art by young contemporary artists in the BFA Exhibition in the Kuva/Tila gallery in the Mylly building. The exhibition will also serve as a venue for Tapani Heikinheimo’s performance titled MITÄ (WHAT), where four Uniarts Helsinki teachers will choose works from the exhibition and react to them using improvisation.
In addition to the BFA Exhibition, there will also be an art sale on campus, giving visitors the chance to observe and purchase unique art by Academy of Fine Arts students. The art sale will feature all kinds of art: small pieces and large pieces, paintings and sculptures, prints and photography.
Fans of the theatre need not be worried, as the programme will be updated with more content during the summer.
Fourth-ever arts festival
Uniarts Helsinki’s arts festival was organised for the first time at the Helsinki Music Centre in June 2019 under the name Feel Helsinki, and it attracted over 5,500 visitors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the events took place at the Helsinki Music Centre, while some content was made available virtually. This year, the festival will be organised for the first time on Uniarts Helsinki’s Sörnäinen campus, and the name is changed to Uniarts Fest.
Further information
Soili Sirenne
Project Manager for Uniarts Fest
soili.sirenne@uniarts.fi