Soil and Spirit

Hanna Vainio’s Maapohja is an exhibition exploring a protective spirit of a place (genius loci). Opening at Juminkeko in autumn 2026, the exhibition centers on the interactive relationship between human and environment, and on the lived and experienced spaces that shape both landscape and mind.

In Vainio’s work, the remote is never empty or distant – it is a meaningful sphere of life: the villages, wilderness areas, and quiet edges of the land. Having lived and worked in Kainuu over the past decade, the artist investigates how a person and a place grow into one another – how soil, matter, sound, and time interweave into something that can be sensed and felt.

The exhibition features sculptures made from natural materials alongside woodcut prints. A new piece created specifically for Juminkeko combines ceramic sculpture with a sound installation. For Vainio, material is intimately tied to place – she works with locally sourced elements such as clay, wood, and earth and plant-based pigments, chosen both for their visual qualities and their deeper significance.

Hanna Kaisa Vainio

Hanna Kaisa Vainio (b. 1984) is a visual artist and art educator based in Hyrynsalmi and Helsinki, Finland. Her work focuses on the relationship between people and place, ecological processes, and environmental issues. Vainio’s artistic approach is grounded in material research and traditional craft methods, shaped by a close connection to nature and the raw materials it provides.

She is an active member of the Mustarinda Association, which runs an artist residency and cultural center on Paljakanvaara in Hyrynsalmi. Vainio holds master’s degrees in Textile Art (2014) and Art Education (2023) from Aalto University.