������

This exhibition showcases a selection of Master’s Theses 2024-2025 from the Department of Architecture. The works represent the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture and urban studies and planning.

Aalto University’s Department of Architecture educates professionals that make an impact in the intersection of technology and art, with a strong understanding of social, cultural, environmental and economic implications of their work. With creative exploration, transdisciplinary collaboration as well as contextual and critical thinking, the Aalto graduates are building a socially responsible and sustainable future.

Image: Nhung Pham's thesis addresses the adaptability of housing through game methods. 

Addressing complex sustainability challenges, such as climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, and other socio-ecological disturbances call for new mindsets and skills. In alignment with this call, the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, the School of Business, and the School of Chemical Engineering jointly organise the Creative Sustainability programme.

The Creative Sustainability Graduate Show presents a range of interdisciplinary projects offering critical and creative approaches towards understanding and addressing sustainability challenges through a variety of media and formats. The systemic and transformative visions of these projects focus on the world's current sustainability issues and offer glimpses into just, resilient and desirable futures.

You are welcome to join the exhibition opening on Wednesday 27 August at 5 p.m.! 

Image from Niilo Tenkanen's mobile urban furniture that are free to use on campus. These chairs are the perfect antithesis to 'hostile design' (hostile design refers to design choices that prevent unwanted people from using the city). Photo: Anne Kinnunen

Step through the portal and get to know thesis projects from both Master's and Bachelor’s graduates in Visual Communication Design (VCD). The exhibition invites you to explore topics ranging from visual identities and interfaces to artistic explorations as well as speculative and strategic approaches.

This year’s theme is ‘Portals’. A portal symbolizes a threshold — a passage between realities, dimensions or states of being. The graduates are stepping through their own portal into the world that awaits them. The audience, in turn, is invited to step into the visual worlds the talented Aalto VCD graduates have created.

Image from Linnea Sjöholm's installation in letterpress 'Fragments of...' Photo: Anne Kinnunen 

Four Master's level Costume Design graduates 2025 showcase their work. The works cover dance costumes, film costumes and costumes from a theatre performance done within an inclusive and accessible design process.

Aalto University’s degree programme ‘Costume Design: Performing Arts and Film’ at the Department of Film is the only one of its kind in Finland. The programme nurtures future professionals for the theatre, film, media and creative industries. Costume professionals work on issues of representation, characters’ personalities and motivations, and contribute to shaping new dramaturgies. The strength of exceptional costume design lies in its connection to storytelling and emotional resonance.

Image from 'Livsfarligt på allvar!' (2024), a collaboration between Svenska Teatern, DuvTeatern, Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy (TeaK), Acting in Swedish (TeaK) and Aalto ARTS costume design major. Costume design by Meri Craig. Photo: Cata Portin

A selection of both Bachelor’s and Master’s student films made in 2024-2025 by Aalto University’s ELO Film School.

ELO Film School's task is to provide students with guidance, space and tools to help them find their own voice and artistic style. At the same time, film education has an important national task. The education is aimed at improving the technical, artistic and substantive quality of Finnish films and television programmes, while also promoting the success of domestic films in the everchanging international market.

Screenings in VÄRE Screening room on Mondays 8, 22 & 29 September. 

One screening in Marsio Cinema 17 September.
 
Screening schedule can be found here!

Image: still from Helmi Donner's film 'The Lightning Rod / Matalapaine', which premiered in La Cinef 2025, the official section of the Cannes Film Festival for short films made in film schools. 

This exhibition is a tribute to the work of animation artists. Through this magical artform, the lifeless comes to life and continues to enchant generation after generation of viewers. Aalto University’s Masters programme in Animation is the first of its kind in Finland, and its graduates are key actors in a wide network of national and international animation professionals. This exhibition presents a compilation of projects carried out over the past 4 years.

Animations are seen everywhere. At Aalto, students are not only engaging with different audiences but also testing the boundaries of animation, drawing reference to contemporary, personal, social, ethical, cultural and environmental issues. Animation has its fantastic ways to communicate complicated themes. Animation artists use various techniques, from handmade to computer generated, with a creative mind. Animation celebrates imagination!

Masters of Animation consists of three elements:

* The exhibition (V1 gallery, Väre second floor) 
* Screenings in Väre Screening room as well as in Marsio Cinema 
* Pop-up day of Virtual reality VR works on 6 October at Väre downstairs F lobby

Welcome to all three!

Short films marked MA Animation are created by people studying full time at Aalto University. Ones marked RE:Anima have been created in RE:Anima European Joint Master in Animation programme, in collaboration with three European animation schools: Aalto, University of Lusofona in Lissabon and LUCA school of art Genk Belgium. The makers of these films spent their last semester in Aalto.

Animation films:

Kaikki äitini puhelut (10 min. 2021) // Iiti Yli-Harja (dir) MA Animation, puppet animation

Maihinnousu (9 min. 2021) // Kaisa Penttilä (dir) MA Animation, puppet animation

Pliant Beings ( 6 min. 2023) // Mikko Heiskanen (dir) MA Animation , 3d animation

After Rain (5 min. 2023) // Virve Ranta (dir) MA Animation, puppet and 2D animation

Muut ihmiset (8 min. 2023) // Anni Sairio (dir) MA Animation, cut-out animation 

Hound (14’35”, 2023) // Lauri Ketonen (dir) and Hertta Lehtovirta (character design, animation) both MA Animation, 2D animation

Muscle Hearts ( 5min 30s., 2023) // Juho Maurinen(dir) MA Animation, 2D animation

Nalle ikkunassa (5 min 30s. 2023) // Erkki Rämet (dir) MA Animation, 3D animation and live action

Is This Now the Time I Should Let You Go (9 min. 2023) // YiChin Tsai (dir) RE:Anima, Drawn on papers, paint on film

The Announced Tragedy (10 min. 2023) // Thanut Rujitanont (dir) RE:Anima, Hand-drawn on paper and light on wall shot by Super8 camera

HeadRest (3 min 2024) // Heta Okkonen (dir) MA Animation, 2D animation 

Paula’s House (2024) // Doreen Mwirigi (dir) RE:Anima, mixed techniques

Tape (6 min. 2024) // Wing Ki Hui (Candace) (dir) MA Animation, 2D animation

Closer (8 min, 2024) // Albert Laine (dir) MA Animation, 3D animation

Etsijät, (10min, 2025) // Helena Hyvärinen (dir) MA Animation, 2D animation 

Veteen piirretty (15min 2025) // Heta Jokinen (dir) MA Animation, clay, cut-out and sand animation

Also featured in the exhibition are the works of: 
Mreetmandir Roy RE:Anima
Sara Saffari RE:Anima
Natali Padilla RE:Anima
Maryam Khalilzade RE:Anima
Lauri Järvenpää MA Animation

Image: still from 'Tape' by Candace (Wing ki Hui).

Exact screening times and works can be found here.

The exhibition Unheimliche Dinge / Uncanny things focuses on the unknown in artistic practice and research, and invites to imagine the not-yet-known at the intersection of artistic, pedagogical and theoretical knowledge. The Art Education MA graduates’ works bring to view questions of the inexplicable, imagining, identities, and experiences of belonging or not belonging.

Aalto University’s Art education major is a central agent in art education in Finland and plays a prominent role in the international arena. The studies focus on the potential of art education to build a sustainable future. Artistic practice and visual cultural phenomena are examined in relation to ecological, ethical, social, technological and interdisciplinary issues. 

Image: detail from Hannah Hamberg 'The last of its kind / Lajinsa viimeinen' (2025)

Step into GradArcade’25 — a showcase of graduation projects from the Master’s Programme in Art and Media, Game Design and Development major.

These works reflect a vibrant mix of themes, techniques, and personal visions. From procedural content generation to puzzle design, from games about care to a K-pop-inspired board game — each project is driven by what its maker felt compelled to explore. These aren’t just polished games and prototypes; they’re crafted statements, shaped with intention and heart.

Digital games are no longer novelties. They are the art form of our century, capturing the spirit of the times and connecting us as playing humans. These graduate projects contribute to the evolving flow of playful media and the future of playful art.

Image from ODDLI puzzle game. Team: Nestor Feijoo, Antti Kangas, Esther Calderón Morales, Uneeb Kari, Melanie Wigger, FU WEI and Vili Sihvola. 

This exhibition focuses on design's role in society. The works on display push the boundaries of industrial design towards interaction design, service design, co-design and other emerging fields, where design activities can enhance the quality of people’s lives but also make an overall positive impact.

In their Master’s theses, CoID students are presenting novel approaches and key practices needed in design innovation. But they are also exploring the new roles of the designer in industry and society at large.

Image: Nozomu Okada's electric guitar, a Finnish-Japanese co-design.

Master’s thesis in Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design (FaCT)

Resonance is an exploration of burial attire as a bridge between presence and absence, life and decay. This collection of biodegradable garments invites us to reconnect with the earth in death, embracing decomposition as an act of renewal. Biofabricated from organic waste and discarded matter, the materials form a vast archive of textile-like leathers and foils, wrapping the body in an intimate, soil-bound embrace. Through gothic-inspired silhouettes, still life configurations and heirloom-infused textiles, these pieces offer a new aesthetic for biomaterials and death care—one that nurtures grief, honours memory, and transforms the body into part of the eternal cycle of life.



Photo: Francisco Camacho Gonzalez