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Painting the Past

Vaaleahiuksinen nainen nojaa seinään ja katsoo kameraan. Seinällä eri värisiä ja eri kokoisia maalauksia.
Meri Toivanen, originally from Kajaani in Finland, has lived in Belgium for the past six years.

Finnish cultural history is a recurring theme in Meri Toivanen‘s paintings. She reinterprets imagery from Finnish post-war films through metaphors found in the gaming world.

The visual artist, originally from Kajaani in Finland, has lived in Belgium for the past six years. Toivanen feels that being away from her homeland has increased her interest in it.

“This new context has made me research my family’s history and Finland’s cultural history through films. Both have connections to the threat and uncertainty of the Winter War, which feels current again because of the war in Ukraine,” she says.

The 27-year-old Toivanen graduated two years ago with a master’s degree in painting from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. It is where the great Finnish artist Albert Edelfelt studied history painting in the late 19th century with the support of a state scholarship.

Soon after graduating, Toivanen was offered a part-time position to teach figure drawing at the academy. At the same time, Toivanen is building her career as a visual artist.

So far, opportunities have been many. Toivanen has participated in duo and group exhibitions in Luxembourg, Belgium, Finland, and Denmark. However, she acknowledges the challenges many artists experience at the early stages of their careers.

“The biggest fear for many young artists is the void following graduation. I had quite a good continuity; I built my network during my studies and held exhibitions. For me it was quite easy, but it has been challenging too trying to find my place in a new city,” Toivanen says.

Residency provides new opportunities

For the time being, Toivanen plans to stay in Antwerp. She enjoys the city’s diverse art scene, and feels that a degree in fine art is highly valued.

At the beginning of next year, Toivanen will take the next step in her career by starting a five-month residency at MORPHO in Antwerp, enabled by the Cultural Foundation’s Residency Programme.

Nainen ateljeessaan maalaamassa taulua lattialla. Seinällä on eri värisiä maalauksia.
Toivanen managed to build networks during her studies and held exhibitions already in the beginning of her career.

During this time Toivanen plans to work on a project titled Let the Sleeping Dogs Lie, where she explores the concept of power through metaphors and symbolism. At the end of the residency, Toivanen intends to hold her first solo exhibition.

In addition to delving into her own work, Toivanen looks forward to encounters with local and international artists and curators, and visits to local museums and galleries included in the programme.

“Studying was a wonderful social time. I’ve dreamed of being able to go back to an environment where there is a community feel. It’s great that I get to connect with other artists again and see their creative processes. A new environment will surely spark new ideas too,” she says.

Final outcome surprises

Eri värisiä ja kokoisia tauluja seinällä.

While in the residency, Toivanen wants to explore new working techniques too. She does not use an easel but often works on the floor, aiming to complete a painting in one sitting.

The paints Toivanen uses are often very fluid, which causes them to move and spread across the painting’s surface, making the final result hard to control.

“I have the right to fail when I paint, and during my studies I learned not to be attached to the outcome. The painting is done in one layer, and if I am not happy with it, I can just wipe everything off and start again. Painting doesn’t always succeed, which is also interesting,” she says.

In addition to oil paints, Toivanen uses self-made pastels, ink, gouache, and watercolours. During the residency, she also plans to create figurative sculptures. Ceramics is a new medium for Toivanen, who has explored its qualities during summers spent in Kajaani.

For her, one of the hardest things is knowing when a work is finished.

“As a student I was required to produce a lot at a fast pace. After graduation, I’ve had my own peace and space to work, and I haven’t felt the pressure to finish what I do within a certain time. Now I have the freedom to focus on the process in the moment, and that is the most important thing.”

For the sake of shared art

Working alone is Jarkko Partanen‘s nightmare. Having discovered the world of dance when he was a teenage, Partanen realized early on that he specifically wants to collaborate with others.

He gained his bachelor’s degree in London, and later completed his master’s studies at the University of the Arts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy. Partanen quickly understood that he preferred creating performances rather than performing in them, and so he became a choreographer.

“It was liberating to realize that I don’t have to be a dancer. On the other hand, as a choreographer, I don’t have any particular practice that I want to develop from one production to another. If I had to work alone, and plan my own future projects by myself, my career would have ended a long time ago,” he says.

Creative commitment

Eight years ago Partanen co-founded the Wauhaus collective with four other artists. The group had previously worked together in various configurations and discovered that naming the productions after the director or choreographer did not reflect their way of working.

By committing to a mutual artistic future and its development, Wauhaus aims to create institutional structures that support their long-term and multidisciplinary work within the art field. This means building fulfilling partnerships and international relationships, and continuously developing their ways of working.

Partanen admits that teamwork is not always straight forward, and sometimes things don’t go as planned. Nevertheless, the mutual journey continues.

Mies istuu seinään nojaten, vasemmalla viherkasvi, oikealla juliste
“The richness of working together is that no one knows for sure what the final outcome will be”, says Partanen. Photo: Laura Iisalo

“Art is difficult, creating performances is incredibly hard, and the work never gets easier. However, individual ideas become much better when they have been scrutinised, criticized, crafted, challenged, and deconstructed together from different perspectives. Ultimately, we arrive at something none of us could have imagined at the beginning. That is the beauty of working together,” Partanen says.

Internationality is a necessity

Wauhaus is based in Helsinki but tours globally. The Fluids performance, for example, premiered in Tallinn six years ago, and is still being performed in various countries. Partanen thinks internationality is a necessity in the field.

“Productions take many years to create. In terms of the lifecycle of the works, it feels completely unsustainable to show them only in Finland, where performance opportunities and contexts are limited,” he says.

The themes, compositions, proportions, and implementation methods of the Wauhaus productions vary. The collective has showcased their pieces on the main stage of the National Theatre, at the Helsinki Biennial, and in small Black Box theaters.

What ties the pieces together is their strong audiovisual and spatial thinking. The role and position of performers on stage have been collectively questioned, and Partanen has created choreographies not just for humans but also for robot dogs and excavators.

“Although we are a collective, people have different professional roles, educational backgrounds, and perspectives. We have learned that our strength lies in doing diverse things. When we get excited about an idea, we tend to dive deep into the theme, and suddenly I’m choreographing excavators,” he says.

Residency concretizes ideas

Ryhmä ihmisiä studiossa, tausta on sininen.
The Wauhaus collective prepares for their forthcoming show during a residency in Tallinn. Photo: Sofia Okkonen

In August, the Wauhaus team will head to the Kanuti Gildi Saal in Tallinn for two weeks, made possible by the Cultural Foundation’s residency program. In addition to Partanen, director Juni Klein, sound designer Jussi Matikainen, scenographer Laura Haapakangas, and seven visiting designers and performers will participate in the residency.

The group is already familiar with Kanuti Gildi Saal. They stayed in the residency ten years ago and created the Dirty Dancing performance, which Partanen considers the starting point of Wauhaus. This time, they will work on their forthcoming Renaissance piece, which premieres in Helsinki this December.

The five-performer performance is co-produced by the Helsinki-based Zodiak – Centre for new Dance, and it explores the themes of re-enchantment and transformation through mythical bodies that turn fantasies into flesh.

For now, the piece is in the early stages of planning. The residency period allows for the ideas to be taken from the drawing board to the stage, and for the group to be immersed in the world of the upcoming work. 

The performance can go in many directions, and no one knows for sure what the final outcome will be. That’s the richness of working together, says Partanen.

“Working with others brings a diverse perspective, which is important and enjoyable for my own artistry as well.”

Translating words and ideas

In 2022, the Finnish Cultural Foundation launched a new form of support aimed at translating and bringing world literature to Finnish readers, especially from those original languages which are currently underrepresented in Finnish translations. 

Over the course of ten years, a total of EUR 1 million will be allocated, enabling the translation of one hundred high-quality contemporary books from around the world into Finnish. The translated works can include prose, poetry, or essays for adult readers.

For the years 2022 and 2023, the supported books’ original languages include Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Polish, French, and Estonian. One of the first books released was Olga Ravn’s Danish novel De Ansatte – The Employees in English and Alaiset in Finnish – translated by Sanna Manninen.

Nainen istuu kahvilan pöydän ääressä läppäri sylissään. Takana avautuu kaupunkinäkymä ikkunasta.

“As a translator, I am delighted that the Finnish Cultural Foundation has launched such a major project related to translating literature, especially from languages less translated into Finnish,” says Manninen.

At university Manninen studied general literature and later translation studies. After graduating she worked for a publishing house before becoming a freelance literary translator. Initially translating from Swedish to Finnish, she soon added Danish and Norwegian, which she learned in practice by reading books.

“Becoming a literary translator is a learning-by-doing process, but various courses and seminars for translators have also been very useful,” Manninen notes.

According to Manninen, the best part of being a Finnish translator is the chance to work with books. “Translating fiction into Finnish is also a very creative task, and as a profession, it offers great freedom.”

Most often, Manninen translates the books which publishing houses offer her. “In the Nordic countries, Finnish publishing houses have extensive contacts, but in many other language areas, more assistance is needed from translators in selecting books.”

Books translated from English dominate the market for translated literature in Finland. According to the Fennica database, in 2022, over half of the fiction translations published in Finland were from English, and just under a fifth were from Swedish. The remaining share comprises all the other languages in the world.

Manninen speculates that English translations are so common because the culture is familiar to Finns. Books translated from English might be easier to approach, therefore more are published. The same applies to Nordic books.

The less a language is known in Finland, the more important it is to translate works from that language into Finnish, she emphasises. Even if you know a foreign language well, entering the world of a literary work is entirely different when reading it in your own native language, interpreted by a skilled translator.

In addition to the Translating world literature into Finnish grants, the Finnish Cultural Foundation annually supports translators with regular grants. Manninen has received several grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation for translating Nordic literature into Finnish.

The financial significance of a grant is big. “Money means time, and time means quality,” describes Manninen. Thanks to a grant there are more opportunities to refine the work, resulting in a better translation. A grant also encourages and motivates professional development.

Author Olga Ravn is known in Denmark especially as a poet. She has stated that she is not particularly interested in traditional forms of the novel. De Ansatte is a fragmentary, poetic text, not a traditional narrative novel. It features, for example, descriptions of strange, inanimate objects that appeal to all of the senses.

It was a fascinating challenge to translate. “It is really difficult to try to describe in Finnish unusual objects that do not exist in the real world.”

The work became easier when Manninen learned that the novel was based on texts Ravn wrote for an art exhibition catalogue, describing the exhibited works. Some of the objects described in the book had been on display at the exhibition, and pictures were available. This helped to find the right expressions.

De Ansatte is a critique of capitalism in the form of speculative fiction. It is a kind of existential sci-fi, describes Manninen, adding that the work may not necessarily reveal much about Denmark and the Danes but rather the thinking of one contemporary Danish author.

“That’s what translated literature is: it not only tells us what life is like in other countries but also how people think elsewhere.”

You can find the books published with our translation grant so far on our book gallery (in Finnish). 

Book Gallery

Black and White Success Story

Debut author Ivanda Jansone‘s creative path has been full of incidents.

She felt a pull towards art already in her childhood, but the uncertainty associated with being an artist made her hesitate. Instead, she decided to be rational and study graphic design, and later furniture design, but the idea of making art never left her alone.

In 2018 by chance, Jansone took part in a comic course at the Aalto University’s open university, taught by the renowned artist Matti Hagelberg. The experience opened up a view to the world of comic art, and got Jansone back to drawing.

Then the pandemic struck, and Jansone was laid off from her graphic designer job.

“Getting fired crushed my ego, and everything came to a halt. I heard my own voice for the first time and understood who I am, and what I want. Comics were the only thing that interested me at that moment. I decided to focus on making art and see where the path takes me”, she says.

Captivating debut

Jansone’s debut book, Mustavalkoinen mestariteos (Black and White Masterpiece), was released last year. The book got a raving review in the main Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, which brought it to the public’s attention and made it one of the most reserved books in the library.

Taideteoksia ja kyniä pöydällä

It came as a complete surprise to Jansone.

“The work was very personal. It was about exploring myself, art, and new techniques. I didn’t expect or even think about getting reviews. The feedback felt nice though, and it gave me confidence in my work, and trust that I am on the right path”, she says.

The vibe in Jansone’s illustrations is surreal, a result of her playing with many levels of reality and observations. Wordless comics that rely solely on images are her favourites. She prefers leaving the story open in order to allow the reader participate in its narration.

“Working on comics requires a lot of planning, and I like planning. It is interesting to build an ambience and environment for a story out of nothing. I’m also interested in time. If a single image, painting, or a photograph captures a moment, in comics the moment is continuous”, Jansone says.

Residency brought back memories

Jansone, who moved from Latvia to Finland in 2008, has started working on her next comic book, which explores memories and secrets stemming from her childhood in the former Soviet Union.

Old Soviet-era objects, such as a vinyl player, animal masks made of paper mache, an orange jug, an old alarm clock, and a little Cheburashka toy, become images and stories in Jansone’s hands.

Last autumn, Jansone spent two months working at the NART residency in Narva, supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The Estonian city is located a stone’s throw away from the Russian border, and it’s stagnant atmosphere suited the theme of her on-going project.

While in the residency, Jansone was expecting her first child, which helped bring back even more memories of her own childhood.

“The time I spent in Narva was very emotional. I turned inward because I felt the need to spend a lot of time by myself. It was wonderful to delve deep into the past and relive the memories of my childhood. Being in the old, quiet residency building in the evenings when all the doors were shut made me feel like I was in a movie set”, Jansone says.

New forms of comics

Jansone is currently on parental leave but new ideas for art and comics are already brewing in her mind. In the near future, Jansone plans to complete the book she started at the NART residency, and graduate from the Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts with a master’s degree.

Printmaking, and especially gravure printing, is the next natural step for Jansone, who wants to bring her comics to a larger scale, and take them to new environments, such as gallery walls.

Mustavalkoinen surrealistinen piirustus käsistä
The vibe in Jansone’s illustrations is surreal, a result of her playing with many levels of reality and observations.

“There are many talented comic artists in Finland, and I wonder why comics remain at the subculture level, it can hard to even find them in bookstores. Also, comics can be more than books. I would like the interest in comics to start from a gallery”, she says.

Comic artist Ivanda Jansone received a residency grant in 2023. She worked for two months at NART Residency in Narva in the autumn of 2023.

The Voice of Contemporary Art

A soprano voice playing from a record player fills the space. The sound is a conflicting blend of self-examination and justification of a grave robber’s remorse and shame. It belongs to Confession Piece for Voice, a sound installation created by artist Jonna Kina in collaboration with composer Lauri Supponen. The artwork was exhibited at Helsinki Contemporary in 2021, and it is now part of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma’s collections. 

Sound has always been the most important of all senses for Kina. She reflects on her works through sound even when they are silent.

“The capability of sound to directly affect our emotional register is ultimately a multisensory experience. That’s why sound is a natural element in visual arts, where silence is a typical characteristic of space. I am fascinated by how sound can operate on the boundaries of the emotional, intuitive, and conceptual, even the irrational”, Kina says.

Interpreter of new worlds

Nainen värikkäässä villapaidassa istuu puisten tikkaiden päällä.

Kina feels most comfortable on the edge of something new. As an artist, she observes her surroundings, and creates new worlds based on her interpretations. In addition to sound, Kina uses moving image, installation, photography, sculpture, and language in her works. Not everything can be verbalized though—if it could, making art could become boring. 

Sometimes Kina’s works arise from a compelling need. She might be haunted by something that calls for her attention. This was the case with the exhibition series about the grave robbers.

The story begun in Mazzano Romano in 2017. Kina attended an artist residency in the small Italian village, where she found a jar belonging to the Faliscan culture in a local archaeological museum. The ancient, grave-robbed object captivated the artist, who returned to look and photograph the jar again and again.

The object eventually became part of a video piece titled Red Impasto Jar, a moving portrait of the jar placed on top of an industrial motor, which, as it spins, reveals the fragile essence of the jar to the viewer.

“The story of the jar is unknown but it was intended for the afterlife. I had to make a piece out of it to break free from its spell. The jar made me wonder if it is right to present a culture or a language one does not know, or if the museum has the right to present an object that belongs to another person’s memory”, Kina says.

Mobility opens new doors

Last autumn, Kina spent three months at the Fabrikken residency in Copenhagen funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Kina, who earned a master’s degree from the Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts, has also studied and worked in New York and Jerusalem. She says that the importance of mobility only comers clear when an opportunity to travel arises.

“A new environment activates the senses and generates new thoughts very differently from the familiar home environment. Through traveling comes a revelation that no one comes to Finland just passing by. Sometimes it can be long after the residency when I realize what I achieved, and how my work progressed”, she says. 

According to Kina, establishing international contacts is one of the most important aspects of an artist residency. In Copenhagen, she met curator Nadim Samman, who invited Kina to participate in a group exhibition at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin this spring. Her piece Secret Words and Related Stories will be on display, and in March Kina will hold a reading performance.

Nainen värikkäässä villapaidassa nojaa valkoiseen seinään.

Apart from meeting the curators, Kina finds exchanging ideas with fellow artists fascinating. During her time at Fabrikken, she was mentored by local contemporary artist Joachim Koester.

“Another artist understands the different stages of the process and work-related matters, such as materials and forms, at a microcosmic level. Exchanging technical advice is useful too”, she says.

Artistic Inventory

Last year, Kina’s career and personal life were full of meaningful events. She took part in three international museum exhibitions, a gallery exhibition, and also became a mother for the first time. After a busy period, Kina wants to take time to reflect her life, and to hold what she calls an artistic inventory.

“An artist is not a machine. I want to quiet down, and proceed slowly in order to have space for something new. Once in a while it’s important to get lost in order to suddenly find yourself in the middle of something interesting, and let it lead somewhere”, Kina says.

The current atmosphere has also led Kina to contemplate her work and art in relation to everything else. In a world filled with threats, the significance of art has become even more emphasized, she says.

“I want to remember to think of the good, and to approach things that touch me, but which the present society does not call for. Art is a channel through which all sorts of things can be addressed”, Kina concludes.

Artist Jonna Kina received a residency grant in 2023. She worked for three months at Fabrikken Residency in Denmark in the autumn of 2023.

Masculinity shaped by Lutheranism

“Now men are talking!” “Men need to be heard.” These are a couple of examples of headlines in the media from recent years. They summarise the need to start a discussion about Finnish men and the expectations, norms, and ideals attached to them in modern society.

A four-year project at the University of Eastern Finland, led by doctor of theology and university lecturer Sini Mikkola, is contributing to this conversation. The Finnish Cultural Foundation awarded the project a grant of 242 000 euros in 2024.

Nainen kuvattuna sälekaihtimien läpi, taustalla seurakuntasali ja saarnatuoli

“The aim of our project is to examine the Lutheran background of the ideals and norms of masculinity from the 16th century all the way to the first decades of the 1900s. We believe that the historically strong position of the Lutheran church and religion has been relevant in terms of the expectations attached to the male gender.”

Norms of masculinity from several centuries

The project studies the formation of the ideas of masculinity, starting with Martin Luther’s Germany and then moving on to Finland from the 17th to the 19th century.

“We look at the expectations that not only priests, professors, and politicians but also ‘ordinary’ people in less influential positions set for masculinity, how these expectations were met, and what the role of religion was in defining masculinity.”

Along with Mikkola, the project is carried out by PhD Miia Kuha, MTh Tapio Leinonen and DTh, BA Hanna Pöyry. They all cast light on the historical legacy of the Finnish perception of men.

“Manhood, masculinity, and the associated customs, beliefs, and norms aren’t born in a vacuum; they take a long time to form,” Mikkola notes. “That’s why they are worth studying from a historical perspective.”

The effect of Luther and his thoughts on vocation

Mikkola says that Lutheranism and the expectations linked to masculinity are strongly connected, even in everyday speech. The Lutheran work ethic is one example of this.

“It has shaped the Nordic and thus also Finnish norm of a man as a hard worker and uncompromising bearer of responsibility. The basis of the concept of work ethic lies in Luther’s idea of a worldly vocation. Luther was of the opinion that whatever a man’s profession was, the command and call to work came from God.”

Although the idea of a Protestant work ethic is originally from Max Weber, Mikkola notes that Luther’s understanding of vocation must have influenced the norms of masculinity associated with Nordic men.

“However, many normative ideas have roots even further back in history.”

The era of national romanticism valued strength

Nainen istuu puisessa penkissä ja katsoo kameraan. Taustalla harmaa kiviseinä.
According to Sini Mikkola, people grow into both manhood and womanhood in a similar way, by adjusting socially to the expectations of their environment.

According to the long-standing norms of masculinity, a decent man takes care of his family, thinks rationally, shows leadership, and is the head of his family.

“Of course, the extent to which these ideals have been realised in the lives of individual men is another matter. Ideals and reality rarely go hand in hand.”

During the period of national romanticism in the second half of the 19th century, the expectations and ideals attached to men were somewhat diversified in Finland, as Fennomania was rising its head in the Grand Duchy of Finland ruled by Russia.

“For example, in his poetry Zacharias Topelius highlighted a fit and healthy young man, simultaneously humble and God-fearing but also a strong and righteous defender of his home and mother. The opposite example was of a weak wimp hiding behind his mother, not deserving of respect.”

Demand for modern men’s studies

Throughout history, Mikkola says, man has been the absolute of humanity. When a man is considered a representative of humanity in general, the fact that his experiences and thoughts are also determined by his gender is often neglected.

“Men’s studies have examined this gender-blindness and begun to uncover the different kinds of norms related to masculinity, their producers, and the structures that maintain them.”

Men’s studies are becoming increasingly prevalent, but masculinity has been studied far less than femininity.

“I believe that the critical examination of masculinity and its norms is an act of equality, too. People grow into both manhood and womanhood in a similar way, by adjusting socially to the expectations of their environment.”

Turning to forest for water resistance

Mies kurkistaa laboratoriovälineiden takaa

All over the world, people are competing to find solutions to replace plastic products with wood-based alternatives.

As a material, plastic is functional, durable, practical, and cheap. The problem lies in the fact that plastic is made from crude oil, so it sustains our dependence on fossil fuels.

“There is an immense amount of wood in Finland, and it could be processed further than just into paper and cardboard,” says Mikko Alava, professor of physics at Aalto University.

When it comes to water resistance, wood pales in comparison with plastic. Anyone who’s ever used disposable tableware outdoors has noticed how wood-based plates and cups get wet.

A thin plastic coating has to be added to paper coffee cups, resulting in the material no longer being fossil-free; and even then, a paper cup will eventually get soggy.

Thus, the key question is to develop a water-resistant wood-based material to replace plastic. Alava and his colleagues aim to find a solution with the help of lignin.

Lignin constitutes 30% of the mass of wood, and it’s a polymer, a bundle composed of small molecules. Lignin is formed by the coupling of three phenylpropane units, and its structure varies individually.

Lignin is easily available; initially, lignin comprises up to a half of the black liquor of a pulp digester. However, in terms of paper and cardboard, lignin is a harmful substance. In pulp manufacturing, it is discarded, and eventually it will be burnt to generate energy.

“In the future, lignin might be more valuable as an alternative for plastic than as fuel.”

AI to the rescue

Lignin is water-repellent. It forms vascular tissue in trees and other vascular plants, enabling the conduction of water and thus sustaining the life of the plant.

With the help of lignin, a tree can control its water transportation and doesn’t get soaked. This means that in order to replace plastic with wood-based materials, lignin must be organised as neatly as it is within wood.

“Our goal is to break down the wood and then rebuild it. The fibres are used to make foam, and lignin is added to this foam to make it water-resistant.”

On a general level, the recipe is simple: make foam out of cellulose fibres, then throw in lignin, stir and mix, and let dry – and you’ll have an alternative for plastic.

Alava and his colleagues, researchers Juha Koivisto and Tero Mäkinen and two graduate students are still unsure as to what the best structure for this wood-based material is and what process should be used to produce it in a way that makes the material water-repellent. They are trying different kinds of mixing ratios and mixing and heating methods, then testing the properties of the material.

There are endless opportunities, so they’ve turned to artificial intelligence for help.

“We can give artificial intelligence all the information we have gathered so far and ask what should or shouldn’t be tried next. This way, we can skip 90% of the tests and just conduct the ones artificial intelligence deems relevant,” Alava says.

A successful yet soggy substitute

The idea of a water-repellent wood product is a successor to Foamwood, a process that Alava and his group created to make lightweight and solid foam from forest materials as a substitute for expanded polystyrene. 

The foam isn’t water-resistant, but it’s been useful in dry environments, such as replacing bubble wrap in parcels. Startup company Woamy is looking to turn it into a commercial success.

“Being able to send products without plastic is a competitive advantage for various companies,” says Alava.

Packaging for ready meals and restaurants

Mies seisoo laboratoriossa valkoinen kiekko kädessään.
The research of Mikko Alava and his team is expected to result in wood-based packaging material for snacks and restaurant food.

Alava is confident that his team will find a recipe for a water-resistant alternative for plastic.

“Our efforts will probably succeed, and we’ll also come up with something unexpected, as is often the case in research.”

Sometimes an invention can also turn a profit, but this remains to be seen.

Alava and his colleagues aren’t looking for a perfect solution. When each and every lignin molecule is different, it can be difficult or even impossible to develop an industrial process for products that are expected to remain 100% waterproof for decades. Hence, we’re unlikely to see a wood-based Styrofoam in frost insulation; a wood-based packaging material for ready meals and restaurants is a much more likely outcome.

“As long as the product is water-resistant enough and easy to recycle after use, it’s good,” Alava concludes.