Espoo Museum of Modern Art
The Art Path of Espoo Hospital
Espoo Hospital is home to the largest selection of art from EMMA’s collections that is deposited outside the museum. The presence of art in the hospital has a positive, healing effect on everyone in the building – patients, their loved ones and also the hospital staff. You can walk freely along the path, passing the works in any order you choose. You can make a tour including all the art works, or immerse yourself especially in one of them.
Read more about the different parts of the Art Path below.
By the entrance
1. Oona Tikkaoja: Helix, 2016
Aluminium, led light
Placement: the outer structures of the footbridge
The work is in dialogue with the architecture. At its best, the work seems to belong to its place, in an almost self-evident way. Have you viewed the work more closely? Which is your favourite spot from which to view it?
The artist says she got her inspiration both from the Rod of Asclepius, the symbol of medicine, and the double helix of the DNA. What does the three-dimensional geometric sculpture make you think of?
2. Hanna Vihriälä: Silverweed, 2016
Steel wire, aluminium, plastic beads
Placement: the entrance hall
Can you see the form of the Silverweed in the work? In ancient times people said that this herb helped against diseases caused by envy.
The artist depicts a green pearl cloud as a forest raining through the ceiling into the room. Bring to your mind the memory of some pleasant nature experience. What does it look like?
3. Hanna Vihriälä: Rumex, 2016
Steel wire, aluminium, plastic beads
Placement: suolaheinä restaurant
In older times, rumex was considered to increase appetite. Can you think of other folkloric hints? Which plant was it whose leaves helped to heal wounds?
Apart from nutrition, food is a social situation that brings people together. The cheerful colours seem to repeat the lively murmur of voices. Have you noticed that some of the beads have a different shape. What topics of conversation can you find in the work?
For waiting and quiet moments
4. NioRautiainenToikka: (In)Sight, 2016
(Leena Nio, Taneli Rautiainen, Jenni Toikka)
Glass, metal
Placement: the silent room, ground floor
Take your time, just be. In the silence, the instincts are activated, the passage of light changes along with the hours of the day. The horizontal lines point to the horizon, the landscape. The work has been made using pieces of the same window glass that was used when the hospital itself was built. Glass as a material is being compared to the fragility of human life: it’s hard, but breaks easily.
The more non-figurative and allusive a work is, the more it leaves room for interpretation. A material from nearby can take you far by the sheer force of imagination. Where do you travel in your imagination? How do you understand the work title (In) Sight?
5. Changing video work
Placement: the waiting area, the outpatient clinic
Contemporary art comments on the phenomena of time both from the viewpoint of technique and motifs. Sometimes it’s hard to perceive a work as a work of art, at other times it sweeps you along with it immediately.
Scrutinize the work on the basis of your first impression. What’s your opinion? What time phenomenon does the work allude to, according to you? What supplementary information does the name of the work give you?
By the elevator
6. Irma Weckman: Icarus, 1988
Ceramic
Placement: the elevator hall ground floor
The name of the work alludes to Icarus, the boy of the antique mythology and tale who flew too close to the sun, not paying attention to prohibitions. Art contains many motifs that artists during different times have taken stands on through their own interpretations.
What kinds of goals are you reaching out for? What kind of wings would you need?
7. Kirsi Kivivirta: Waters, 2016
Clazed china
Placement: the elevator halls floors k1 (ground floor)-k3
At the place where Espoo Hospital is now situated, long ago there used to be a well to which people came even from far away to fetch water. The motif shows the importance of water for life. To the ensemble belong six reliefs situated along the entrance routes.
The work series has been made with china, and in it you can find figurative elements alluding to the different states of water. In the reliefs, how does the story of water begin and where does it end?
8. Erkki Hienonen: Summer midday, 1979
Oil on canvas
Placement: the elevator hall 3rd floor
This abstract painting captures the viewer through its forms, rhythm and colours. You can let your thoughts flow freely and just be within its energetic sphere of influence. Colour has many different cultural meanings and everyone can find her or his own.
Let the work sweep you along, bring to your mind a piece of music, sing, dance, hum!
In the patient rooms
9. COMPANY, Vase Tree, 2016
Aamu Song, Johan Olin
Glass, metal stick
Placement: your own ward
The leaves or flowers of the vase tree are flower vases blown as works of handicraft by Lasisirkus (the Glass Circus). The artwork has been planned in order to be used.
To make art, you often need a playful attitude. The artist duo encourages you to move alongside the work, to place yourself for example at its root, at the tree’s crown. Take the vase to your room to see how light filtrates through it.
Artworks in the patient rooms
The artworks placed in the patient rooms belong to EMMA’s or the Saastamoinen Foundation’s art collection. Most of them are graphics produced in many techniques. It’s important that art gets a viewer and becomes real. In a storeroom, it doesn’t dialogue with anyone.
Read more about the artworks in the patient rooms.
How do the events or the different hours of the day influence how you experience the artwork of your own patient room? What happens in the work?