– The pandemic has hit organisations active in the cultural and events sector particularly hard, and support is needed. The Cultural Foundation for their part is looking to help high-quality art organisations around Finland to withstand the pandemic and remain operational during the period of uncertainty, explains Jari Sokka, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation.
The additional grants will be distributed in even ten-thousand-euro sums between 20.000 – 50.000 euros. The grants can be used, for example, to pay salaries or to cover the rental expenses of rehearsal spaces. The grant decisions will be announced to applicants in mid-December and the additional grants paid out within the current calendar year, unlike other grants in the October round of applications.
This March already, the Finnish Cultural Foundation provided half a million euros as emergency aid through the Arts Promotion Centre Finland Taike to assist arts and culture professionals adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. At that time, the combined funding of Taike, the Ministry of Education and Culture, and a number of Finnish Foundations reached 1,5 million euros. In addition, this spring, the Cultural Foundation through its regional funds distributed a further half a million euros of additional coronavirus funding.
In 2021, the Cultural Foundation will award a total of at least 43 million euros in grants, of which about 26 million euros in the Central Fund October round of applications and 13 million in the regional fund January round. The rest will be awarded e.g. through pools and in the Foundation’s March and August rounds. Including the Art Testers and other projects, the total funding of the Cultural Foundation to culture during the financial year will come up to about 50 million euros.
The Central Fund grant applications are open from 1 to 30 October 2020. Applications can be submitted at the Online Application Service which closes on the deadline date at 4 pm Finnish time (EET).
What feels like an ordinary “summer cold” can actually be a viral disease spread by mosquitoes. In Finland, mosquitoes transmit the Inkoo and Chatanga viruses and, particularly in eastern and central Finland, Sindbis.
– Usually the symptoms caused by these viruses are akin to those of a brief summer fever. Under normal circumstances, few people will consult a doctor over a short bout of fever in the summer, so there are likely more unknown than known cases, explains Essi Korhonen, postdoctoral researcher in virology from the University of Helsinki.
Recently, a few dozen cases of Sindbis virus, i.e. Pogosta disease, have been recorded in Finland annually, with the exception of 2002, when there were 600 recorded cases.
Pogosta disease causes a rash that disappears quickly, but unlucky patients can suffer from years of recurring joint inflammations. The Inkoo and Chatanga viruses can occasionally also cause neurological symptoms.
It is worth staying on top of mosquitoes and the diseases they spread, because in warm countries mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, Zika virus and dengue fever are a major problem.
– With the warming of the climate, new mosquito species could spread into Finland that transmit new diseases. Additionally, Finns can already bring back viruses from their travels which could even be transmitted by our local mosquitoes, Korhonen explains.
Essi Korhonen collects mosquitoes using an insect vacuum. It may look like a hair dryer, but instead of blowing it sucks air.
Korhonen also received funding from the Cultural Foundation to take part in a University of Helsinki team surveying mosquito species. Their paper, published this year, reported that Finland is host to 43 species of mosquito, which is two species more than were found in a similar survey in the 1970s.
– That in itself does not mean that the species were new. They might just not have been observed earlier.
The mosquitoes were also found to carry many new viruses. These are not transmitted to humans and have therefore not been studied much before.
– The mosquitoes’ own viruses may, however, influence their tendency to carry viruses that are harmful to humans. They could sensitize a mosquito to human viruses or, conversely, prevent their ability to carry human viruses. This could be significant in terms of the spreading of these viruses to Finland.
Korhonen analyses urine and blood samples obtained from patients, as well as mosquito samples. She uses a bucket to scoop up mosquito larvae from pools of standing water, and an insect vacuum – a devide that looks a bit like a hair dryer – to capture adult females.
She has also been involved in a joint insect team of the Universities of Helsinki and Nairobi for the last five years. Patient blood samples and mosquitoes have been collected from the slums of Nairobi, from a research station of the University of Helsinki in Kenya’s Taita Hills, and from the shore in the Mombasa region.
At the same time the researchers make observations of the environment in order to model how it affects the spreading of mosquito-borne diseases. In the Taita Hills they found a highly urban strain of dengue virus, which was of Indian origin.
These work trips are far from leisure. The researchers might spend their days with an insect vacuum on all fours on the floor of the public latrine of a tiny village, roaming through dense, foggy forests or climbing over piles of tyres at garages.
Mosquitoes are often collected in people’s homes and on market sites.
– When we return to base at seven thirty, we still have to sort through them all and freeze them, otherwise there is no point in collecting them. The work will often go on until the early morning hours, and by sunrise we have to start getting ready for a new collecting expedition.
At the same time, the Finnish researchers are helping the Kenyan scientists to create research infrastructure of their own, as well as advising ordinary people.
– If we find an abnormal amount of mosquitoes in a village, for example, we will encourage people to cover any pools of standing water. All in all, our reception in Kenya has been very warm and welcoming.
This summer, Korhonen has been studying rabbit fever (tularemia) in Ostrobothnia. For some reason, mosquitoes transmit Francisella tularensis bacteria in Finland and Sweden, while elsewhere tularemia is not mosquito-borne.
Meanwhile, the Stadin Hyttyset (Mosquitoes of Helsinki) project is surveying the mosquito species and mosquito-borne viruses of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
– By Finnish standards, it is a densely populated area, and it also has the most entry points into the country.
How afraid should Finns be of viruses transmitted by mosquitoes?
– Not particularly afraid. I wouldn’t give up having forest walks because of it, Korhonen says.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Finnish Cultural Foundation has been forced to postpone almost all confirmed 2020 residencies and it is still uncertain when a part of these will be realized.Therefore, the situation will also affect the implementation of residencies in 2021.
– It has been challenging to plan international residencies amid the uncertainties of recent months, to say the least, and it is still impossible to predict any timetable for when residencies might start accepting artists, explains Senior Advisor Johanna Ruohonen, who is in charge of the Foundation’s residency programme.
The residencies opening for applications in 2021 can only be confirmed at the beginning of August, but the application period, in its adjusted scope, will open as usual on 10 August 2020.At the moment, the residencies opening for applications will include at least Filba in Buenos Aires, aimed for writers, the Sydney Artspace for visual artists, and the Tokyo Arts and Space for artists in creative fields.The Tokyo-based AIT residency will exceptionally feature a two-month residency period, and successful applicants will be encouraged to travel by land and/or sea.
As for New York Triangle and Seoul SeMA Nanji, the residencies postponed from 2020 will fill up the quota of the Foundation in 2021, so these locations will not be open for applications this year.Instead, in July, the Triangle, in cooperation with the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, will open for application the residency periods postponed from fall 2020 for Finnish artists residing in North America – who are not under travel restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
– The situation is difficult for artists, whose timetables the coronavirus has played havoc on, as well as for our residency programme partners, whose facilities have become empty and all activities would be preferred to be postponed to 2021.This will also lead to financial difficulties, especially for the smaller institutions.The Foundation aims to carry out all residencies already agreed upon, and new residencies will open according to the receiving capacities of our partner institutions, Ruohonen says.
Slow travel by train or by ship
The Finnish Cultural Foundation encourages artists leaving for their residencies to travel in as climate-friendly way as possible. Artists travelling to destinations reachable by rail and ferry traffic are awarded raised travel grants if they agree to travel to their destination without flying. In these cases, the grants for destinations in Asia are EUR 5,000, which compensates both the higher ticket prices as well as time spent on travelling as working time (2 weeks/direction).
A working grant in the Foundation residencies is EUR 7,000 for a period of three months. Additional information on the residencies can be found on the Cultural Foundation’s homepage under the individual locations.The residencies to be included in the August round of applications will be listed on the Foundation’s homepages in the first week of August.
What role do forests play in climate change? This is one of the burning questions in current climate research and policy.
Growing forests absorb carbon dioxide from the air and act as carbon reservoirs. Therefore to combat climate change, we must either increase the growth rate of forests or protect their existing carbon stores by delaying logging.
Researchers disagree, however, on whether the emphasis should be on carbon sinks or carbon reservoirs. This is a highly politicized question in Finland, because forestry is one of the country’s traditional economic cornerstones.
The situation is made more complex by the fact that a large proportion of felled trees ends up used for energy. Logging and milling generates large quatities of wood chips, sawdust and shavings that are incinerated for energy production in large power plants, smaller regional heating plants or household boilers. Meanwhile many households in Finland also burn firewood in fireplaces and saunas.
– If there was less logging, the same energy would have to be generated in another way, possibly using fossil fuels, explains forestry researcher Antti Kilpeläinen from the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu.
The complexity does not end there, either. Forests and their use also affect the climate through particulate matter known as aerosols.
– This effect is ignored in existing life cycle models because there is no comprehensive data on the particulate emissions impact of wood burning, Kilpeläinen says.
Particulate pollution is well known to climate scientists but fairly unfamiliar to the general public.
Burning wood generates carbon dioxide. It is the main greenhouse gas and it indisputably produces climate warming.
The aerosols that are created in the burning process, on the other hand, can either cool or warm the climate.
Biomass combustion gases often include so-called black carbon. When biomass burns, it releases a large amount of small carbon particles in the form of soot. Often some of that soot remains uncombusted in the incinerator or fireplace. When released from a chimney, these black particles bind the sun’s radiation and heat up the climate.
Olli Sippula specialises in particulate emissions from wood combustion. Photo: Harri Mäenpää
– Black carbon is particularly harmful in Arctic areas. When the particles fall onto snow, they absorb the sun’s heat and speed up melting. If melting uncovers the ground, it further accelerates warming because the dark earth absorbs heat that snow would reflect back into space, explains Olli Sippula, associate professor in emission chemistry from the University of Eastern Finland’s Kuopio campus.
Sippula is an expert in particulate emissions from wood combustion, while Kilpeläinen specialises in life cycle analysis of wood products. They intend to create a database of the particulate emissions of wood and fossil fuels.
In conjunction with this, they intend to estimate the life-cycle particulate emissions of oil-based products, such as plastics, relative to comparable wood products. They will obtain the data for the database by making their own measurements and studying research literature.
It will help in considering whether it makes sense to try to replace coal, oil and gas with wood and if so, in which products and how, exactly.
For example, the size of the boiler used for wood or oil combustion is very significant.
– In industrial boilers, combustion is efficient and effective particle filtration is required by law. However, in Finland, 60% of black carbon emissions come from household fireplaces and boilers, Sippula explains.
Overall, wood biomass combustion generates more black carbon than oil combustion. Were households to replace oil burners with wood burners, it would increase black carbon emissions and contribute to climate warming. In contrast, climate-cooling sulphur emissions are much higher from fossil fuels than wood. Therefore, with regard to aerosols, it would seem that favouring wood contributes to global warming.
The impact of aerosols is, however, only one factor among many.
– Firewood is naturally created as a by-product of forestry and the forest industry. Observing the life cycle of forestry as a whole, it might still make sense climate-wise to burn our readily available wood fuels, Kilpeläinen says.
Text: Laura Iisalo
Michael Oduor’s photo: Harri Tarvainen
Timo Perälä’s photo: Reijo Koirikivi, Studio P.S.V.
Will there be more gardenlike environments in cities in the future to make people healthier? Michael Odour in Ainola park, Oulu.
How to create an environment that encourages or even forces its inhabitants to be more active? The subject will be thoroughly examined in a project titled Urban Lifestyle Engineering, which combines expertise of postdoctoral researcher Michael Oduor, who received his PhD in 2018 at the Oulu University, with practical knowledge gathered throughout the years by Oulu-based design agency Navico.
The first phase of the research project is funded by the PoDoCo grant worth 28 000 euros. During this period the aim is to look into best practices across the globe and analyse their impact on both personal and societal level.
The focus will be especially on technology, and how it is utilized as part of urban design – this is a topic closely related to Oduor’s doctoral studies, which looked into persuasive systems design and its impact on human behavior.
– Technology could be used to inspire people towards a more active lifestyle, as it is a beneficial tool for tracking and summarizing habitual changes over time. The goal is to discover efficient ways to create healthier and more sustainable settings that increase social interaction, and make people appreciate their environment more by using technology. These so-called smart cities have been trending globally for a few years now, Oduor tells.
From research to concrete results
Timo Perälä works for better environment and healthier way of moving.
One of Navico’s founders, Timo Perälä, has worked and volunteered in sports long enough to notice that in the past few decades people’s physical performance has declined. He believes that changes in lifestyle are partly caused by the way cities are designed and built – for cars.
– People go to the gym more these days but they move less on a daily basis. They might workout vigorously for an hour but they don’t get enough low intensity movement, which is a bad combination for overall health. It is a global phenomenon, which is reflected in the society and economy. There is no point talking about increasing productivity if people are not feeling well, he says.
Health concerns occur at a younger and younger age. In his work Perälä has seen 16-year-old children that have back fractures or other problems in their support and musculoskeletal system, which can severely impact their future.
– Parents want to buy wellbeing and drive their children to sports practices, which reduces their daily movement. This makes the children susceptible to injuries and physical rehabilitation early on – how will they cope in working life if this is the trend, Perälä wonders.
The intention is to take the collected data from the Urban Lifestyle Engineering research project and put it to use as soon as possible in order to develop better design and operational practices, which can be applied internationally.
– The research side relies strongly on Michael’s skills and with his expertise we can measure the impact and deepen our understanding. We want to use the knowhow to improve people’s daily lives, because that’s where it really matters, Perälä concludes.
What is PoDoCo?
Grants awarded by PoDoCo foundation pool are intended for academic research investigating new innovative ideas to boost the strategic renewal of Finnish industry.
PoDoCo is a matchmaking program supporting long term competitiveness and strategic renewal of companies and employment of young doctors in the private sector. PoDoCo matches newly graduated doctors with companies, and financially supports the collaboration projects between doctors and companies. For more information go to www.podoco.fi
This year the minimum grant was lowered to EUR 2,000, so that there could be more recipients and wider variety of purposes of use.
Sonya Lindfors photographed by Janne Mikkilä
This year’s largest grants, worth EUR 10,000 each, went to three applicants. Choreographer and artistic director Sonya Lindfors and her team received a grant for residency and performance-related travel. Their UrbanApa art community will take its dance performances Cosmic Latte and Camouflage, on the topics of otherness, blackness and diversity, to Belgium, Sweden and Germany.
– After the coronavirus pandemic, international festivals and other events will have even less funds than before, so they will not be able to cover artists’ travel and accommodation costs. This might mean that they invite fewer foreign artists to participate. With this grant and a travel budget we will be able to plan things on a longer time scale, Lindfors explains.
– I believe that the time for individual gigs has passed. It is not sustainable and it doesn’t build interaction with the local community, which is a really important element for us. Now we have a chance to make longer-term agreements. We want our work to be both ecologically and socially sustainable, and we want to leave a mark on the local community. This is why we always combine our tour performances with lectures, workshops or other collaborations with local artists.
Okra Playground, a musical ensemble that combines traditional instruments with modern soundscapes and powerful song harmonies, also received EUR 10,000 for a networking and performing trip to the Mundial Montréal event in Canada. Artists’ association Hiljaisuus ry was granted the same amount for its artistic designers to network in France and the UK.
Several smaller grants and support for residencies
The Arctic Circle Residency is located in Norway, in the high-Arctic Svalbard Archipelago and Arctic Ocean. Photo: Claire Dibble
The foundation approved a total of 19 grants worth EUR 2,000–3,000. The youngest grantees were Anni Martinsen (aged 16) and Johanna Birch (18), who study at the Ballet School of the Finnish National Opera and Ballet and each received EUR 2,000 to attend a summer course in the United States.
Artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö was granted EUR 6,500 to cover residency costs in Svalbard, Norway. There were two EUR 6,000 grants: one will enable a work group led by cellist Hsin-Di Shih to take the AEKI Ensemble to perform in Guatemala and Mexico, while the other will help choreographer Linda Martikainen with residency and networking costs in Italy and Germany.
Applications for the Cultural Foundation’s mobility grants are accepted twice a year, in March and August. All the mobility grants awarded in 2020 are found (in Finnish) here. From the drop-down select “erillishaut” (separate applications) and “liikkuvuusapurahat” (mobility grants).
– The Cultural Foundation decided to grant additional aid for coronavirus-related difficulties, aimed primarily at freelancers in the arts but also available to organisations without separate application, explains Juhana Lassila, who is in charge of grants at the foundation. The additional funding was divided between the regional funds proportionately to the amounts they granted to the arts last year.
– We trusted that our regional funds would know how best to fund the arts in their areas in this difficult situation.
The numbers of applicants to the regional funds grew compared to the previous year. The funds received 6,686 applications from academic disciplines and 2,624 from the arts, and awarded 341 grants to academia and 839 to the arts. Grants were distributed to 175 municipalities around Finland. The proportion of applicants competing for the funds’ grants varied significantly between regions; where in Uusimaa the fund was only able to provide 3% of the funding applied for, in South Karelia, South Savo and Satakunta the corresponding figure was 15%.
The coronavirus situation also meant that the regional funds gave out a larger quantity of grants numerically, although were for smaller sums than usual. The regional funds granted more money than average to fund activities such as art exhibitions, whose share grew by 55% from the previous year. Full-year (12-month) grants numbered 165.
Some regional funds gave out over one million euros in funding, and they were the Varsinais-Suomi (EUR 1.4 million), South Ostrobothnia (EUR 1.1 million), Pirkanmaa and Uusimaa (EUR 1.3 million) and North Savo (EUR 1.0 million) Regional Funds. The smallest grant total was paid out by the Kainuu Regional Fund (EUR 276,000).
Among the grants awarded by the regional funds are larger Spearhead Project grants, which total EUR 20,000–40,000 and are intended for projects with a broader impact within the region. In South Ostrobothnia, for example, the Vaasa City Theatre received a EUR 25,000 grant to start up an opera project together with other local operators, while in Päijät-Häme a EUR 20,000 grant will help facilitate the production of an anti-bullying TV series for young viewers.
The Cultural Foundation has also taken the exceptional circumstances into account in its grant terms, accepting, without further notification, a 12-month extension to the use of grants for projects which have been affected by the pandemic. Similarly, organisers of cancelled events will be allowed to use grants they have received for similar events next year.
Teaching social and emotional skills from young age has proven to be beneficial in many ways. The ability to understand and regulate emotions is likely to result in more positive and supportive relationships, and can help children achieve at a higher level during early years in school.
The importance of the matter was officially recognized in 2016 when social and emotional skills were introduced to the Finnish early childhood educational plan. Postdoctoral Researcher Shupin Li is pleased about the recent developments.
– Learning these skills in kindergarten prepares children for school and protects them from having mental problems later in life, she says.
Scientific evidence matters
Funded by a research grant from the PoDoCo program worth 28 000€, Li has started collaboration with the University of Turku andAittokoski Experience Oy, a Finnish startup company producing educational materials for young children based around a bird character called Pikkuli. What started off as a book was first turned into a TV series, and then a social emotional learning application developed together with kindergartens in the city of Espoo in 2018 and 2019.
The company is currently preparing to expand to the Chinese market, where they have already established partnerships and secured funding. In order to do so, Li and Aittokoski Experience will conduct a study in six kindergartens – three in Finland and three in China – with 200 children aged from three to five. In the first part of the research project the children, their teachers, and parents use the existing Pikkuli app as part of their daily routine. After examining the results, the technical team at Aittokoski Experience will optimize the application for a second round of studies. The final outcome determines whether two different versions of the app are needed for adapting to two culturally different markets.
– We have already received great feedback from the users of the app and we know that the pedagogical content works. But considering that we operate with large organizations in educational market, it is important to have scientific evidence to back it up, says Metsämarja Aittokoski, founder of Aittokoski Experience and the creator of the Pikkuli brand.
Preparing children for future
Working with technology comes with preconceptions because it is sometimes thought to be harmful to young children. Li say that the subject is not black and white; it is proven that excess usage can indeed cause harm but she also points out that technology is unavoidable – especially in the future.
– That’s why it is important to provide guidance to children and prepare them for their future life. Playing outdoors with other kids is one way to learn social and emotional skills but technology provides new opportunities. We just need to teach children to use it in a productive way.
The Ministry of Education and Culture has granted Taike EUR 500,000 in extraordinary funding. Taike had already announced that it was setting aside around EUR 100,000 for alleviating the coronavirus crisis. The Finnish Cultural Foundation will match the sum granted to Taike by the ministry, at EUR 500,000. The Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, the Saastamoinen Foundation, the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland and the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation are each providing EUR 100,000 in emergency aid via Taike. This brings the total aid from the government and the foundations up to EUR 1.5 million.
Taike will open a grant application round at the beginning of April, and grant decisions will be made at the end of the month. Primarily the aid is intended to take the form of short-term grants for freelance artists whose work has been significantly hampered by the coronavirus epidemic. More detailed application criteria will be published later. With this funding, Taike is expecting to provide at least 500 grants.
“The coronavirus epidemic is stirring the Finnish society at large, but its impact is felt particularly keenly in the cultural sector. We want to do our bit to help as effectively and quickly as possible. This aid will provide some relief during the acute situation this spring, but as the effects of the epidemic are likely to roll over into the autumn, significantly more drastic actions will be needed from the society,” explains Jari Sokka, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
“The fact that this project has worked out and succeeded in gathering a EUR 1.5 million aid package in just a couple of days is a sign of the collective responsibility that the Finnish society is willing to assume, and of the collaboration ability of the public and private sectors. The foundations have been exceptionally obliging in assisting arts and culture professionals in these singular circumstances. I value that very highly,” says the Minister of Science and Culture, Hanna Kosonen.
“This aid package will provide vital first aid for the urgent distress of the arts and cultural sector. However, it is just one of many measures that will be needed for the sector to survive the circumstances. The government has also decided on several actions that will provide support for businesses and entrepreneurs in the creative industries. Preparatory work on further measures is under way,” the minister says.
In addition to the funding apportioned to Taike, the Finnish Cultural Foundation will pay out a total of EUR 13.5 million in academic and artistic grants this spring via its regional funds, based on applications received in January. Half a million euros of this total consists of additional funding to help the arts sector withstand the crisis, as decided yesterday by the Cultural Foundation’s Board of Trustees. The regional funds are also paying attention to the particular predicament in which freelancers find themselves. Grant decisions will be made during April and May, and the grants will be payable by the end of May.
The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland and Föreningen Konstsamfundet have adopted a temporary aid form entitled “Kultur under tiden” (Culture in the Now), intended for artists and cultural sector professionals impacted by the corona crisis. The total sum for this aid is EUR 400,000. It is open to applications from arts professionals who work in Swedish in Finland, and who are unable to complete projects meant for audiences according to plan, but who are carrying out other high-quality operations or new projects during the epidemic situation. For more information on the grants, see www.kulturfonden.fiwww.konstsamfundet.fi.
Further information:
Ministry of Education and Culture: Eeva Kärkkäinen, Special Advisor to Minister Hanna Kosonen, +358 40 1492 201 Ministry of Education and Culture: Riitta Kaivosoja, Director General, +358 40 7028 704 Arts Promotion Centre Finland: Paula Tuovinen, Director, +358 40 5838 549 Finnish Cultural Foundation: Antti Arjava, Secretary General, +358 50 385 7600 Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation: Marja Leskinen, Secretary General, +358 40 514 6969 Saastamoinen Foundation: Petteri Karttunen, Chairman of the Board, +358 40 500 1053 Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland: Sören Lillkung, Executive Director, +358 40 620 7500 Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation: Arto Mäenmaa, Executive Director, +358 50 2536
The prize is awarded for developing the perfect basic oat product, for responsible culinary innovation, and for modernising Finnish cuisine.
Reetta Kivelä is a Doctor of Science in Food Technology and a co-inventor of the oat-based vegetarian protein Pulled Oats (Nyhtökaura).
Kivelä graduated with a Master of Science in Food Chemistry from the University of Helsinki in 2003.In 2011, her thesis was selected as the the year’s best dissertation in applied biosciences from the University of Helsinki.Kivelä was the first researcher in the world to discover in an oxidation mechanism the cause for oat beta-glucan degradation during storage.
In 2014, Kivelä began testing the possibilities for using oats as a source of protein, based on an idea from her old friend, the industrial designer Maija Itkonen.Itkonen, Kivelä and Zhongqing Jiang established the start-up Gold&Green Foods.After a long and winding journey, reaching as far as China, the product branded as Pulled Oats was launched in shops in 2016.It has just five basic ingredients:oat, yellow peas, broad beans, cold-pressed rapeseed oil and salt.Demand for Pulled Oats was huge from the start, and in 2017 consumers voted it the Finnish Food of the Year.
Accolades received by Reetta Kivelä have included Chief Technology Officer of the Year, Young Research Entrepreneur of the Year, and University of Helsinki Alumna of the Year.
Outi Pieski
The prize is awarded for tying everlasting knots, for defending northern nature and peoples, and for making nonverbal history come alive.
Visual artist Outi Pieski is known for her impressive installations, as well as for paintings and photographs with themes relating to northern nature and Sámi culture.
Pieski grew up in Helsinki and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts.She also studied traditional Sámi crafts at the Sámi Education Institute in Inari, northern Finland.She now divides her time living and working between southern Finland and her Sámi father’s home region of Utsjoki in the far north.
Sámi handcrafts are an immeasurably valuable cultural heritage.Pieski combines the ancient colours, forms and techniques of Sámi handcrafts with contemporary art traditions.Her paintings glow with northern light, while drawing from present-day subject matter.Some of her central themes are the history and future of the Sámi peoples, indigenous rights, human relationships with nature, equality, and sustainable development.Her light artwork at the Lux Helsinki festival in 2017, which consisted of images of water flowing freely from the windows of Helsinki Cathedral, drew attention to the issues of water rights, water usage and environmentalism.
Pieski is not only an active advocate of Sámi culture but also a master craftswoman.Her work manages to make nature, culture and art simultaneously local and universal.Pieski received the Fine Arts Academy of Finland Prize in 2017, and took part in creating the Finnish pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Risto Saarinen
The prize is awarded to an ecumenical thinker for building bridges and upholding hope.
Risto Saarinen is a Professor of Ecumenical Research at the University of Helsinki, a highly valued investigative scientist, and a member of the international community of non-denominational theologians.
Saarinen has doctorates in both Theology and Philosophy from the University of Helsinki, as well as an honorary doctorate in Theology from the University of Copenhagen.He has led numerous research projects, most recently a centre of excellence of the Academy of Finland entitled Reason and Religious Recognition.
Saarinen’s publications include hundreds of scholarly articles and 27 books.In parallel with his extensive international career, he has written some works for a more lay audience, and has recently completed a trilogy on love, trust and hope for scholarly and lay audiences alike, published by Gaudeamus.
Saarinen tutors younger theologians and philosophers at all levels, from first-year students to recognised Finnish and international talents.He has made significant efforts to construct global research networks.Within the field of theology, Saarinen builds bridges between systematic, empirical and practical theology.In recent years, Saarinen has also tackled the contemporary theme of relations between religion and politics.His answer to fear-mongering and confrontation is a theology of hope.
