Exhibitions

Juha Metso, Marjo Näkki and Mika Rokka have documented for future generations what remains of the outer islands lost to the Soviet Union in the Winter War: Suursaari, Lavansaari, Tytärsaari and Seiskari. They have collected unique photography and video material...

The sea conveys. At the Maritime Museum of Finland you can travel on the surface and in the depths. The sea is a medium for people, goods and ideas.  At the Maritime Museum of Finland you can travel on the sea through time and place, on ships, at ports, in distant...

The Coast Guard Museum, built in cooperation between the Kymenlaakso Museum and the Finnish Border Guard, sheds light on the work of coast guards from the prohibition eras of the 1930s to the present day. The Coast Guard Museum exhibits among other things the Beaver...

Forests are an integral part of Finland’s national culture. The forest industry has long been a patron of art and culture, and in Kymenlaakso, it has also had a great impact on the man-made cultural environment. The art collection of the UPM-Kymmene Cultural...

Oceanista reveals how the style and culture of sailors has been borrowed in high fashion over the decades. The exhibition of the Maritime Museum of Finland showcases ocean-inspired fashion designed by internationally renowned fashion houses and Finnish designers. The...

I love swimming in the gentle waters of lakes and snorkelling at the shores of salty seas. The Surrounded by Hydrosphere exhibition showcases the water-themed works of Johanna Rytkölä, a long-time ceramic artist and sculptor, in the Museum of Kymenlaakso. The...

Photographer Tapio Leisti (1912–1993) was based in Kotka and mainly photographed black-and-white portraits, compositions, and milieu images from the 1940s to the 1980s. His photographs are a combination of professional skill, playfulness, and nostalgic daily life. The...

The city that flourished and died. An exhibition of the life and abrupt destruction of this historical city. Escape from Pompeii brings an internationally successful exhibition to Kotka. The exhibition tells of the destruction of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum...

What would life be without love or the daily life without a little celebration? Love and celebration meet at the I do! Stories of Love exhibition, where visitors get to admire Kymenlaakso region’s wedding gowns and love stories from the past 100 years. The feel-good...

Untamed nature and man-made cultural landscapes depicted by renowned Finnish artists. This exhibition assembled from the collections of the Ateneum Art Museum presents works by artists such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Fanny Churberg, Hugo Simberg, Pekka Halonen, Venny...

A group exhibition by six artists, Natures is built around the theme of landscape. In their exhibition works, each member of the group presents their own view on the theme. Nature grows and shapes itself over time, disintegrates, runs wild and assembles itself into...

Zostera Marina – In the Sea of Change stems from the collaboration project between art and science implemented by Elin&Keino in 2016–2018. The other parties involved in the Zostera Marina pilot project were Christoffer Boström, Senior Lecturer in Environmental and...

Join us on an exploration of emotions! Now I love is a captivating multisensory art adventure where you get to immerse yourself in different emotions safely by the power of your imagination. The brightly coloured parasol of joy swirls around amidst books while anger...

Niina Mantsinen (born 1986) is a textile artist from North Karelia, Finland, whose works are based on graffiti, street art and traditional ryijy wall rugs. In her ryijys, Mantsinen combines the urban and illegal sides of graffiti with cosy, warm and traditional...

When you look at the curves of your body, what do you see? A fell and northern lights, pores and bone shapes? ANTOcollective’s From the Soil exhibition examines the human body, seeking landscape-like qualities and abstract shapes. The pictures, videos and soundscape...

Maaria Märkälä (born 1964) is a landscape painter whose paintings are inspired by her own everyday life and trips abroad. For Märkälä, the entire painting process is a form of slow travel. Märkälä’s characteristic pink and green rhododendrons have recently started to...

The Living Images Research Center opens to the Kymenlaakso Museum, Maritime Centre Vellamo on the 6th of September 2019. The exhibition includes the latest research results on yeastograms and older prints of yeast photographs. There will be real living images, the...

Naive art tells us about the joy of living. The collection of Heinänen Art Foundation records the breakthrough decades of naive art with its key illustrators, techniques and themes. The foundation’s collection of naive art belongs to the collection of Oulu Museum of...

When the earth was flat and the seas teemed with monsters... The monsters of old naval charts have been brought to life and made concrete: Come in, explore and play! The Sea Monsters exhibition will take you to the dangerous waters of the Carta marina map from 1539....

From riding trail to Coastal Road, from Coastal Road to motorway. Road, road-builders and travellers. Straight and flat. That is what the E18 motorway is like, taking drivers speedily across southern Finland. People have been making their way on this road since the...

This exhibition produced by the Pori Centre for Children’s Culture and the Pori Art Museum and organised by curator Päivi Setälä reflects the meaning of bodily knowledge and the senses. This exhibition makes noises, smells and feels. The...

From the traditional standpoint, a book is a source of information and is meant to be read. However, the meaning of a book has never been limited to reading only and can instead be seen as much more extensive and diverse. Many of the meanings have changed and been...

A Town of Winds displays artworks, paintings, graphic arts and drawings which portray the City of Kotka. This exhibition presents up to 80 artworks by 32 artists portraying the City of Kotka, some of them living in Kotka, others elsewhere in Finland. The exhibition’s...

In Play Town, you can throw yourself into the world of playing houses, market stalls or even hop on a tractor. And if you want to get out on the water, get into a boat. It's also worth trying your luck at fishing! Or perhaps you would like to immerse yourself in the...

A pin-up girl’s picture on a cabin wall speaks of longing during an excruciatingly slow ocean voyage. This exhibition, put together by international top-level artists Saskia Boddeke and Peter Greenaway, studies the loneliness, lust and eroticism amongst sailors Since...

Lighthouses and lighted beacons are a part of our architectural and cultural history, maritime history and sea safety. They are home islands, fixed points, memories and, in many cases, also battle grounds and innocent victims of the war years. Some lighthouses have...