Learning Materials

Image: Paula Zvane, Tent, 2021. Installation view from Savvala/SAVAGE show Mushroom childs camp with Liene Rumpe.

Learning Materials is a multi-year partner project committed to rethinking and remaking our relationship with materials. In an era shaped by petrochemical dependence, extractive economies, technological determinism, and escalating ecological crises, the project asks how we might work with materials differently—by attending to their legacies, agencies, and entanglements.

Rooted in shared values and visions, the partnership includes Bioart Society, HIAP, Koynẽ Program, SWAMP: Art Material and Waste Management Point and TUO TUO. 

Through residencies, collaborative research, skill-sharing and knowledge exchange, Learning Materials explores how artists, cultural organisations, and communities can build capacity and networks for learning from and with materials in ways that are just, sustainable, and grounded in diverse knowledge systems.

In Spring 2026, the project will host three residencies at HIAP culminating in a multi-day gathering at TUO TUO. The participating artists, selected from an open call, are Krišjānis Elviks, Aistė Gaidilionytė & Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė and Paula Zvane. They will be supported by the project partners through research and curatorial mentorship across key themes including waste and circular economies, material legacies and biomaterials, and tourism and greenwashing. These residencies are part of a pilot phase in Spring 2026 funded by Nordic Culture Point.

From Summer 2026, Learning Materials begins a two year capacity building project funded by Kone Foundation. With associate partners FIBRA, LABVA, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, and SWAMP-SWAP, the project supports a number of long-term fellowships, international residencies, micro grants, hybrid workshops, public programme activities, a learning intensive and a technicians intensive. Open calls and information on these will be announced from August 2026 onwards. 
 

About The Partners
The partners represent some of Finland’s leading organisations in sustainable material practice, residencies and artist support. We work at the intersection of art, science and society and play a critical role in the transition towards ecologically conscious art and design practices. What unites us is a commitment to experimentation and the advancement of artists and communities’ understanding of their relationship to the planet and one another. Each partner brings to the project a diversity of expertise and resources, including a vast web of local, national and international networks. 

HIAP Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP) was established in 1998 by a coalition of arts organisations in Helsinki. The organisation has since evolved into a leading Nordic residency platform, facilitating research, mobility, and cross-sector collaboration. HIAP will lead on the 2026 Learning Materials pilot residency programme and its coordination. In the last decade, HIAP has led a series of collaborative projects investigating ecological thinking and sustainable practices including the Post Fossil Transition Project and Frontiers in Retreat. 

TUO TUO (est. 2020) is a project space, artist residency, publishing platform and community haven –  that blurs the binary between city and countryside by offering artists perennial access to its rural context and know-how. Located in a former schoolhouse in Joutsa’s Pynnölä- Uimaniemi village, TUO TUO negotiates the point of convergence across sound, visual art, performance and the environmental arts and sciences as an ever-evolving collaborative organism. As a part of Learning Materials TUO TUO will host an ecology-immersive visit in Joutsa, orienting the artists to diverse ecosystems: rewilding gardens, coniferous forests, swamps, bogs, and sites of anthropocentric disturbance. 

Bioart Society (BAS) is a membership association working at the intersection of art, science and society. The association is committed to developing, producing and facilitating activities around art and natural sciences with an emphasis on biology, ecology and life sciences. In Learning Materials Bioart Society offers support for thinking and making with biomaterials and material legacies, as well as embedding interdisciplinary practices and expertise into the programme.

SWAMP: Art Material Swap and Waste Management Point is a material bank for second-hand art supplies and stuff in Helsinki. By creating this space, our objective is to decrease the environmental impact of the Helsinki art industry, and to contribute to the financial sustainability of artists and art institutions. For Learning Materials SWAMP will provide advice and expertise on ensuring the project is built and delivered with circular economy at its core. It will also supply residents with second-hand materials from its storage for recycling, reusing and repurposing.

Koynẽ Program is an international cultural initiative that fosters cross-disciplinary exchange and experimentation, supporting research grounded in more sustainable thinking, material exploration and intercultural dialogue. Named after koiné—a shared language—the program advances the use of biomaterials, technological processes and circular-economy principles in the arts. Through residencies, workshops, exhibitions and publications, Koyne offers spaces for practice-based learning, critical dialogue and new approaches to creative production. Within Learning Materials Koynẽ Program will embed principles on how materiality engages with situated technological processes into the project’s curatorial framework, offering advice and support to the participating artists.