Kiasma Outlines a Robust 2027 Season Featuring Major Surveys and Prize Showcase

The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma has outlined a robust schedule for 2027, cementing its role as a vital hub for Nordic and international contemporary practice. The forthcoming season balances ambitious institutional surveys with highly immersive solo projects and a significant prize-driven group presentation. Each programme demonstrates a clear curatorial strategy centred on spatial experimentation, material innovation, and critical historiography.

Launching in February, Antony Gormley's Hold arrives as the most extensive retrospective of the British sculptor's work across the Nordic region. Tracing developments from the mid-seventies to the present day, the presentation centres on the persistent tension between anatomical form and architectural constraint. Rather than treating the building as a neutral container, Gormley positions cardboard assemblies and site-responsive sculptures to actively negotiate Steven Holl's volumetric design. Visitors encounter works that demand physical engagement: crawling through constructed frames, navigating around suspended elements, or moving beneath expansive light wells. Simon Friese and Marie Nipper have structured the layout to emphasise how perception alters when the body becomes both observer and participant within the gallery volume.

By mid-March, attention turns to Kalervo Palsa with a dedicated collection display marking two significant milestones: the artist's eightieth birthday and the fortieth anniversary of his death. Operating largely outside traditional institutional circuits during his lifetime, Palsa produced a fiercely personal archive of paintings, drawings, and photographic experiments. The new installation situates his investigations of marginalised communities, suburban alienation, and bodily vulnerability alongside contemporary responses from artists including Siiri Haarla and Jukka Korkeila. Curators Saara Hacklin, Saara Karhunen, and Patrik Nyberg draw heavily from the Finnish National Gallery's holdings, noting that Palsa accounts for over a third of their contemporary acquisitions. The display functions less as a retrospective and more as an ongoing conversation about how peripheral voices reshape national artistic narratives.

Monster Chetwynd takes over the museum's fifth floor in April, deploying her signature hybrid aesthetic to construct an environment built from papier-mâché, recycled textiles, and theatrical props. Rooted in surrealist cinema, anthropological study, and grassroots crafting practices, the installation rejects passive viewing in favour of embodied participation. Fantasy figures and shifting set pieces create a labyrinthine atmosphere where audience movement directly influences the spatial logic. Anna Mustonen has designed the presentation to highlight Chetwynd's longstanding interest in collective making and transformative play.

October introduces the Ars Fennica 2027 showcase, highlighting the four candidates shortlisted for Scandinavia's leading contemporary art accolade. Supported by the Niemistö Art Foundation, the award carries a fifty-thousand-euro grant and seeks to strengthen transnational artistic exchange. This cycle features Anna Camner, Anna Estarriola, Joel Slotte, and Sandra Mujinga. Independent cultural strategist Fatoş Üstek will adjudicate the final selection in February, after which the touring exhibition will relocate to Kunstsilo in Kristiansand. Leena Niemistö chairs the nominating committee alongside directors from Kiasma and HAM Helsinki.

November opens Ann Lislegaard's ANIMOID, a comprehensive survey examining humanity's position amid rapid technological acceleration and ecological displacement. The Norwegian practitioner utilises three-dimensional animation, sculptural forms, and layered soundscapes to probe questions of species extinction and digital mediation. A recurring animated owl serves as a narrative anchor, delivering fragmented vocalisations that recall classic science fiction cinema while questioning the reliability of language itself. Piia Oksanen curated the presentation in partnership with Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Arken, and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.

Throughout the year, the Kiasma Theatre will sustain its parallel agenda, hosting choreographers such as Angela Goh and Jefta van Dinther alongside domestic premieres and intergenerational performance events. Jonna Strandberg's programming ensures that live practice remains structurally integrated with the museum's visual arts calendar. Collectively, these initiatives reflect an institution confident in its capacity to mediate complex contemporary debates through rigorous spatial and temporal framing.