HEIJASTUS (reflection)
kinetic rya
10 x 100 x 110 cm
nettle, wool, cotton, lead
2025
The kinetic heijastus rya ripples as the viewer’s airflow interacts with its lead weights. Video presentation: https://vimeo.com/1136019871
The rya is part of the Läike work pair. The other piece, ruutusuurennos rantavedestä, is a pencil drawing by Väinä Räsänen. The work pair Läike explores how a private perception of movement can be shared with others. The idea for the work emerged from a shared observation: when sunlight shines onto closed eyes, it appears behind the eyelids as flickering, shifting light. How can a private, yet commonly shared, experience of movement be conveyed to others?
The phenomenon that serves as the starting point is comparable to other forms found in nature, such as fungal mycelium or the root systems of trees. This comparison also functions as a metaphor for the duo’s way of working and conversing. Their process is branching, freely associative, and wide-ranging. As they developed the idea, the notion of movement came to signify, for the pair, the changing and vanishing formations of light and water that escape the eye or the artist’s hand.
Okkonen and Räsänen worked side by side in Enonkoski in the summer of 2025, each developing their own work. The pieces were created over six weeks in the same place and at the same time.
The kinetic heijastus rya is also Okkonen’s Bachelor’s thesis work (Fine Arts, Bachelor of Culture and Arts, Turku University of Applied Sciences). The artistic work is closely intertwined with their written thesis, in which they examine and articulate their kinetic rya practice within contemporary art discourse.
The thesis positions both the multispecies collaboration inherent in the practice and the kinetic rya within posthumanist, new materialist, and ecocritical frameworks of contemporary art. It concludes that what is enacted through artistic practice participates in shaping the lived world, and that artistic methods challenging anthropocentrism contribute to building a more ecologically and socially sustainable reality.
The thesis Yhteinen kudos – kineettisen ryijypraktiikan ruumiiden monilajinen yhteistyö (Collective Weave – The Multispecies Collaboration of Bodies within the Kinetic Rya Practice) can be accessed here (in Finnish): https://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/909449
Exhibited in:
2025 Olemus, group exhibition, Ropeway Gallery – Turku Art Academy, Turku, Finland
2025 Koskifest, multidisciplinary cultural festival, KoskiGallery, Enonkoski, Finland
Photos: Ida Lindgren
LUIKERO
kinetic rya
50 x 95 x 160 cm
nettle, wool, cotton
2025
The kinetic luikero rya rotates as visitors’ airflow interacts with it. luikero explores slow, alternative, and kinetic rya practice with multipieces collaboration with the plant known as ramparuoho, more commonly called twinflower. luikero is part of the ramparuoho work pair. The other piece, linnaea borealis, is a text by Isa Hukka. The two pieces are in conversation, creating a dialogue between textile and language.
Hukka’s starting point for their text, linnaea borealis, has been their method called rampa/crip writing. Through crip writing, they explore myths of disability, among other things. Interwoven with Hukka’s text installation was an A-shaped rya that visitors were invited to touch.
The artists come together around a shared question: how can ramparuoho be narrated and named? What does ramparuoho tell us, and about us? While many know it as twinflower, its local names stem from practices of care it has been used for. The ramparuoho work pair draws on the concept of crip, which also frames the project’s crip-artistic methods. By crip art, the artists mean critical, ecological, and queer disability art.
Exhibited in:
2025 Rauma Triennale 2025: Enchanting effort, Rauma Art Museum, Rauma, Finland
Curated by Sanna Karimäki-Nuutinen
Photos: Hele Okkonen
SIIMES – KATVE (shade)
2023–2025
Siimes – katve is an exhibition series in which a growing collection of hand-tied ryas reflects the undisturbed and patient conditions that endangered species require and the fragile increase in their occurrences when such conditions exist. The ryas embody different forest species while making their sustaining habitats visible in the exhibition space, environments now threatened or already lost due to unsustainable forestry, expanding construction, and climate change. Slowly produced, the ryas contrast with the accelerated pace of the capitalist world and highlight the tension between natural rhythms and human expectations of continuous growth. Each rya is inspired by species observed during forest surveys and walks, reflecting their forms, behaviors, and interactions with the environment.
The series was shown at Siimes – katve I, Asbestos Art Space, Helsinki (October 2024), and Siimes – katve II, Galleria Centrum, Karjaa (September–November 2025).
In the summer of 2025, while working on the Siimes – katve II exhibition series, Okkonen participated in a two-week residency at the Bioart Society’s Ars Bioarctica residency program at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station (Gilbbesjávri in Northern Sámi). The following text, published on the Bioart Society’s website, reflects my insights during the residency: https://bioartsociety.fi/projects/ars-bioarctica/posts/vibrant-bodies
AURINKOHYRRÄ (sun spinning top)
kinetic rya
30 x 90 x 90 cm
nettle, wool, cotton, rotating motor, timer
2024
The Aurinkohyrrä rya’s kinetic quality is created by a motor that rotates it in 10-minute timed intervals.
Exhibited in:
2025 Siimes – katve II, solo exhibition, Gallery Centrum, Karjaa, Finland
2025 Virtaa! Uute 25, group exhibition, Finnish Association of New Textile Art, Pyhtää, Finland
2024 Siimes – katve I, solo exhibition, Asbestos Art Space, Helsinki, Finland
Photos: Ida Lindgren and Hele Okkonen
KELO (pine snag)
kinetic rya
55 x 55 x 130 cm
nettle, wool, cotton
2024
The kinetic quality of the kelo rya emerges as it rotates in the space in response to visitors’ airflow.
Exhibited in:
2025 Siimes – katve II, solo exhibition, Gallery Centrum, Karjaa, Finland
2025 Kaavaton, contemporary textile art group exhibition, Raisio Museum Harkko, Raisio, Finland
2024 Siimes – katve I, solo exhibition, Asbestos Art Space, Helsinki, Finland
Photos: Ida Lindgren and Hele Okkonen
Rusokääpä (Pycnoporellus fulgens)
ryas
15 x 35 x 45 cm & 10 x 17 x 25 cm
nettle, wool, cotton, iron wire
2024
Photos: Ida Lindgren
NORJANTORVIJÄKÄLÄ (Cladonia norvegica)
kinetic rya
30 x 35 x 48 cm
nettle, wool, cotton, iron wire
2025
Photos: Hele Okkonen
PUBLIC ART:
Encounters – Art in the Bridge Hospital
2021–2023
The pattern and color scheme of the ryas were inspired by the lichen that dot the rocks on the seashore in Helsinki. Lichen are able to attach to a rugged surface and to make it habitable for other species; a symbol of hope. The title was inspired by the patterns emerging from the slow growth of the lichen, resembling pathways or a map on the rocky surfaces. The trek of the title is also a journey of life and its contrasts as reflected by the complementary colors on the rya.
In the HUS Art Collection, in the Farewell room of Meilahti Bridge Hospital, Helsinki, Finland
Curated by Taru Elfving
Photos: Jussi Tiainen
Taival 1 (Treck 1)
rya
nettle, wool, cotton
5 x 120 x 233 cm
2023
Taival 2 (Treck 2)
rya
nettle, wool, cotton
5 x 60 x 115 cm
2023
Kevät (spring)
rya
nettle, wool, cotton
10 x 30 x 38 cm
2023
Photos: Hele Okkonen
MUOTOUTUMIA – ESSEITÄ MUUTOKSESTA (Formations – Essays of Change)
2020
The eternity, the inevitability, the aimlessness, the unstoppable continuum of change. Alongside the works, there has been a question: can one stop at the edge of change? Where is the edge of the change? Does anything stop? By making and witnessing the resilient slow continuum of organizing, things slowly pile up and take shape, stratifying over time, transforming into new forms and essences, customs, and purposes.
Exhibited in:
2020 muotoutumia – esseitä muutoksesta, solo exhibition, Gallery Loukko, Helsinki, Finland
Photos: Nova Pokkinen
Aallokko (waves)
kinetic sculpture
weft, wood, plastic, rusted iron, rotating motor, timer
30 x 47 x 115 cm
2020
Vuoto (leak)
kinetic sculpture
16 x 16 x 160 cm
syrup, glass, clear nylon line, rusted iron
2020
Utu (haze)
installation
130 x 172 cm
window decal
2020
ESSEITÄ HITAUDESTA (The Essays of Slowness)
2020
The essays of slowness series examines and redefines the nature, manner, and maker of the ryijy/rya. Slowly, listening to the body’s intuitive memory, accepting the influences of the artisans of the family in their hands, the non-binary maker dismantles and rebuilds the notion of the rya. The essays of slowness series was born from studying and doing slowness: its fragility and looseness on the one hand, and commitment, sustainability, and continuum on the other. The technique used in the series has found its form through doing, by weaving together their own self-made technique with the traditional rya knot and braiding pattern. A layer by layer method requires commitment to choices, responsibility, and staying with the trouble, while dismantling learned conventions and creating new forms. This process requires trust. Slowly, things pile up and take shape, stratifying over time, transforming into new forms and entities, habits and customs, and purposes.
Exhibited in:
2020 Unearthing, group exhibition, Levyhalli – Suomenlinna Sea Fortress, Helsinki, Finland
Photos: Hele Okkonen
When the light hits?
rya
recucled yarn and iron bar
7 x 110 x 140cm
2020
Sammeln (Germany, accumulate)
rya
recycled textile, metal frame
4 x 100 x 140 cm
2020
Reaching
rya
recycled textile, glass, wooden slat, moss, stone
5 x 80 x 145 cm
2020
Hele Okkonen 