In its 2025 summer exhibition, Mänttä Art Festival approaches the world through the negative: NO! (in Finnish: EI!). The key word offers viewpoints on locality, childhood and parenting, human environment, traditions, and mind and body, among other things.
The XXIX (29th) Mänttä Art Festival will also look at art curation from different perspectives. In addition to approximately 40 contemporary artists, the exhibition will feature numerous co-curators making this the most extensive curatorial process in the history of the festival. The focus will be on the distribution of power and responsibility of the artistic directing known as curating.
Curator Krister Gråhn has invited a group of co-curators, experts in different roles in the art world, to participate. They will bring an unprecedentedly wide range of artists and themes into the programme.
The Mänttä Art Festival will push the boundaries of contemporary art with the help of the co-curators who will utilise architecture, design, urban planning, art education, theatre, jewellery, public art, art writing, and documentation.
Co-curators of the XXIX Mänttä Art Festival
- Architect and Doctor of Technology Iida Kalakoski, MW-Kehitys Oy and its CEO Otto Huttunen
- Teacher Hannele Karppinen, Visual Artist Heidi Saramäki and Antti Korkka, Head of Culture and Leisure in Mänttä-Vilppula
- Ihmisyyden tunnustajat, theatre professional Satulia Saarilehto & Visual Artist Paula Tella
- Visual Artist Elina Försti & Architect and Doctor of Technology Iida Kalakoski
- Art Historian Kaija Kaitavuori
- Doctoral Researcher and Curator Sanna Karimäki-Nuutinen
- Visual Artist and Art Educator Hanna Rantala
- Poet and Art Critic Raisa Jäntti
- Jewellery Artists Tarja Tuupanen & Jenni Sokura
Read more about the co-curated programme: Co-curators 2025
The artists of Mänttä Art Festival 2025 will be announced in March.
Mänttä Art Festival is one of the most prominent contemporary art exhibitions in Finland. In 2025, the event will be organised for the 29th time in the old industrial venue Pekilo, in Mänttä-Vilppula. The exhibition is open every day from 15 June until 31 August 2025.
Image: Susanna Koskimaa, Mänttä Art Festival 2021. Sculpture in the front by Jaakko Himanen and Vesa Toukomaa, paintings in the back by Tiitus Petäjäniemi.
