ART IN THE CITY: HELSINKI
We celebrate art from around the world by asking our MUNTHE muses what art means to them and how it shapes the cities they call home. With Art in the City, we aim to inspire, connect, and celebrate the vibrant creativity and culture that make each place unique.
In this month’s edition, our Finnish muse Alina-Mariia Hodz, takes us through her favorite art galleries and museums in her city, Helsinki.
Alina is wearing our BIKALY OUTERWEAR, BOMI SKIRT and LIX BAG.
Sculpture: Free Fall by Anna Uddenberg
The sculpture shows a woman flyboarding, propelled by a water jet - a symbol of how we imagine the future through technology, freedom, and control. I love this work because it captures something very rare: the feeling of absolute safety while moving freely through space. It’s about motion, courage, and trusting your body in an unfamiliar environment. The work was designed to hover above a moving sea, but it’s winter now, and I was able to walk right up to the frozen ice. From there, it felt almost cosmic - like a woman flying through the sky, suspended between water, snow, and air.
Alina is wearing our BIKALY OUTERWEAR, BOMI SKIRT and LIX BAG.
Anhava Gallery
Galerie Anhava is one of the most influential spaces for contemporary art in Finland. Founded in 1991 by Ilona Anhava, it has played a key role in shaping the Finnish art scene - from the very beginning. What I love most is what it represents: a woman-founded gallery in the early ’90s, building an international dialogue while consistently supporting emerging artists. Even today, it remains a place where new voices are discovered and careers are nurtured. It’s not just a gallery - it’s a foundation for the future of Finnish art.
Kiasma Museum
Kiasma is Finland’s largest museum of contemporary art, housed in a bold concrete building that feels heavy and monumental from the outside - and surprisingly fluid and immersive inside. The architecture invites you to move, explore, and lose yourself in the spaces. Right now, my favorite exhibition here is by Sarah Lucas. Her work explores the female body, freedom, vulnerability, and courage using everyday objects - furniture, tights, food. The result is playful and provocative.
Alina is wearing our BELINE OUTERWEAR, OBEY PANTS and LIXIA BAG.
Alina is wearing our RARSNIMA TOP, BAIA SKIRT and LIXIA BAG.
Villa Gyllenberg
Villa Gyllenberg is a museum of classical Finnish art located in the former home of Ane and Signe Gyllenberg. Walking through it feels less like visiting a museum and more like being invited into someone’s private world.The cozy rooms still hold the original furniture, while the walls display works by Finnish artists from the 19th and 20th centuries - including pieces by Helene Schjerfbeck, one of Finland’s most important artists.I love this place for its intimacy. You don’t just see art here - you experience it slowly, room by room, surrounded by history and coziness
Didrichsen Sculpture Park - The
Enlightenment
Next to the Didrichsen Art Museum is one of my favorite sculptures in Helsinki: The Enlightenment by Lorenzo Quinn. Two monumental hands reach toward each other, symbolizing the founders of the museum - Marie-Louise and Gunnar Didrichsen. To me, this work is about partnership, creation, and shared vision. It feels powerful and tender at the same time - a reminder that cultural spaces are often built through collaboration, love, and long-term dedication.
Alina is wearing our RARSNIMA TOP, BAIA SKIRT and LIXIA BAG.
Favourite Artwork: Young Girl Under the Birches by Helene Schjerfbeck
The painting shows a very typical Finnish landscape: birch trees, water nearby, maybe even the edge of an archipelago. It feels very familiar, the kind of place every Finnish person carries somewhere inside. More than anything, it feels like Finnish summer - something that’s waited for, longed for, and finally arrives after the winter lets go. There’s a special atmosphere here. To me, the young girl feels like an embodiment of that moment when everything opens up again - when we become hopeful, lighter, almost reborn. After months of darkness, the long days return, the nights barely exist, and suddenly there’s energy again. I also see something very Finnish in this work: a quiet happiness, a humble kind of joy, no drama - just presence. The girl looking forward feels like a collective pause before the future, filled with trust, calmness, and a deep connection to nature.
Alina is wearing our BIKALY OUTERWEAR, BOMI SKIRT and LIX BAG.
