Exhibition: Metro and Bloom Making Connections

The Embassy of Finland is hosting an exhibition by Finnish born, New York-based artist Heidi Hankaniemi. Metro and Bloom  Making Connections will be on display on September.

Photo: Heidi Hankaniemi.
metro
Metros by Heidi Hankaniemi.

Heidi Hankaniemi is a visual artist working primarily with textiles. She has exhibited throughout Europe and United States and her work has been featured in several prestigious magazines.

The exhibition consists of two parts, the Metros, and the Blooms, both created with textile-techniques often used by Hankaniemi. Hankaniemi says, that the act of sewing -piercing the fibers allows her to create both a physical and an emotional bond with the fabric. With the works displayed in this exhibit, she embraces the connections between the materials, their origins, herself, and the world.

Photo: Heidi Hankaniemi.
Blooms by Heidi Hankaniemi.

Metro is a travelogue, a stitch-by-stitch journey through every subway in the World. Hankaniemi has worked on the maps on and off for over a decade while living in different countries. The metros are a diary in motion, about motion. The metros themselves are in a constant flux, being reconstructed and re-designed. The maps are based on the real-life pocket maps, with the correct colors and lines at the time of Hankaniemi's journey through them. The maps are presented anonymously, without stations. They appear as abstract drawings, clusters of sewn lines in the air, but contain millions of lives making connections in the world.

The Blooms consist of hundreds of floral embroideries brought together to bloom. The series started when Hankaniemi was recovering from a brain surgery and started going through her collection of vintage embroideries, collected over the years from flea markets across the World. While Hankaniemi was mending and gathering together the handicrafts made by anonymous women around the world, she was also mending herself. The Blooms gave the before discarded works a new life and a place to flourish in.

September Opening Hours

  • Saturday 15th, from 11 am to 4 pm
  • Saturday 29th, from 11 pm to 4 pm