Wild Blue and Eternity in the Garden — two exhibitions at HAA Gallery, Suomenlinna, Helsinki, until 18 October 2026

Suomenlinna, the sea fortress begun in 1748 on the islands at the mouth of Helsinki harbour and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991, keeps a contemporary art gallery inside its walls. HAA Gallery, in building C 1 near the ferry quay, is run by the Helsinki Artists’ Association, founded in 1967 and today representing more than nine hundred professional visual artists in the city. Its displays change every four weeks, and from 25 September to 18 October 2026 the two halls hold two solo exhibitions that both turn on the relationship between people and the natural world around them.

In Hall 1, Eeva-Liisa Puhakka shows Wild Blue. About fifteen years ago the artist came across a piece of folklore from the Latvian coast: blue cows that lived in the sea and came ashore to graze just before sunrise. The exhibition grows out of that story, with a three-part series of video works made between 2021 and 2025 and sculptures made from recycled leather and cowhides, some of them from her father’s cattle: heads mounted on the wall and abstract forms that ask how humans and animals share a place. Puhakka works across kinetic sculpture, video, installation, bio art and the art of scent, and received the City of Kouvola artist prize for 2020–22. The work was supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland and the Kone Foundation.

In Hall 2, Raana Lehtinen shows Eternity in the Garden, oil and watercolour paintings in which, in the gallery’s words, “memories of youth intertwine with fresh observations of the surrounding environment” and the everyday nature of a nearby landscape becomes a stage for something wondrous. The paintings draw on urban nature and on childhood memories of the forests of eastern Helsinki, and on the question of the human being’s place inside an ecosystem. Lehtinen, born in 1990, graduated from the Free Art School in 2019 and took her MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in 2024; her work is held by the Finnish National Gallery and the Tampere Art Museum. The exhibition was supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Vermeeriana Foundation and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

Both exhibitions opened together on Thursday 24 September 2026 and are part of Suomenlinna’s official events programme. The gallery is a fifteen-minute ferry crossing from the Market Square, which makes it an easy addition to a visit to the fortress itself.

Practical details

• When: 25 September to 18 October 2026; Tuesday to Thursday 12 noon – 6 pm, Friday to Sunday 12 noon – 4 pm
• Where: HAA Gallery, Suomenlinna C 1, 00190 Helsinki, Finland
• Organised by: Helsinki Artists’ Association (Helsingin Taiteilijaseura)
• Getting there: HSL ferry from the Market Square (Kauppatori) to Suomenlinna
• Information: the galleries office, telephone +358 50 470 6087

Cultural Heritage Online lists these exhibitions for readers visiting Suomenlinna and following contemporary art shown inside historic fortifications.