Hanna-Katri Eskelinen

Imagine your dream reality. What would it look like? Who would be
there? Hanna-Katri Eskelinen’s exhibition Sarastus (The Dawn) takes the visitor to an alternative, sustainable future. It leads to a fictional Helsinki in 2031, where people seek safety in community. At the same time, the exhibition asks: how to foster peace in politically turbulent times? The illustrator explores our challenging times, navigating boldly amidst the tensions of the modern world, such as climate anxiety, the rise of the far right, political polarization and climate change denial. Eskelinen’s work opens up space for imagination and collective hope.

The series of works in the exhibition originated during Eskelinen’s master’s studies at Konstfack in Stockholm. The works are partly based on letters in which people described their own dreams of ecotopias.* The anonymous letters opened up perspectives on communal landscapes, the meaning of home and collectively constructed reality, which the illustrator first collected in the form of a zine publication. Now, the ideas are conveyed in a powerful way through the multimedia works in the exhibition.

Hanna-Katri Eskelinen is an illustrator, animator and graphic designer living and working in Stockholm, who describes their work as a dance between fantasy and reality. Their work explores intertwined emotions of joy, nostalgia and hope, and reflects a belief in the urgent need for new ways of living together. Eskelinen is fascinated by both digital and analogue illustration methods, as well as wood as a material in its many forms. In an era of climate catastrophe and environmental destruction, Eskelinen uses art—illustration, animation and poetry—in creating alternative, sustainable futures.

*eko- = from the Greek ‘oikos’ (home), -topia = from the Greek ‘topos’ (place)

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