Everyone’s Birthdays – Aine Art Museum 40 years
In northern Finland, the substantial art collection of Tornio art collectors Eila and Veli Aine proved to be an invaluable cultural gift to the country’s northern region. Aine Art Museum will be honouring this heritage throughout the museum’s 40 th anniversary year of 2026.
The Everyone’s Birthdays event programme will celebrate the museum’s 40-year history by bringing art, culture and their creators to both the museum and locations throughout the twin cities of Tornio and Haparanda. Everyone’s Birthdays invites everyone to celebrate the museum’s anniversary year and Oulu2026 – the city of Oulu’s year as a European Capital of Culture – together.
The events are open to all and free of charge.
Everyone’s Birthdays is part of Oulu2026 – European Capital of Culture.
January: Teija ja Pekka Isorättyä x Aine Art Museum 10.1.–25.1.2026
Exhibition Dry January 10.1.–25.1.2026 Tue–Sun 12–17
Galleria Kortteeri, Rajalla På Gränsen, Länsiranta 10
The Tornio-born artists, Teija and Pekka Isorättyä, will launch the Everyone’s Birthday event series of the Aine Art Museum in January 2026. The exhibition Dry January will be presented at the Rajalla På Gränsen shopping centre on the Finnish–Swedish border, offering an experience that visitors can dive into as part of the shopping centre’s offerings.
“The work features robots getting drunk in a bar. Two of them are, so to speak, wild Tornio locals, as the roots of the piece lie in recession-era Tornio of the 1990s, when people were made to feel sort of redundant. We have brought that era of Tornio into the age of robots,” Teija and Pekka Isorättyä explain.
Teija and Pekka Isorättyä (b. 1980, Tornio) are an artist couple originally from Tornio and currently working in Espoo. The Isorättyäs work extensively with kinetic sculpture and public art. The artistic duo has realised several significant public artworks, including Broken Lantern (2013) and Kojamo (2021), both located at Nordberg’s Möljä in Tornio. Teija and Pekka Isorättyä have held exhibitions around the world. Robot Bar was exhibited in 2024–2025 at the Ennova Art Biennale in Langfang, China. In 2017, Teija and Pekka Isorättyä were nominees for the Ars Fennica Prize. They have been awarded the Lapland Art Award.
Robohemians sculptures: Eye mechanics of Veke & Tortsua and mouth mechanics of Tortsua: open-source code, 3D printing, Nilheim Mechatronics / Will Cogley.
Script and robot voice realisation (Marina): Marina de Ita. Script and robot voice realisation (Veke & Tortsua): Samuli Pörhölä. Programming: Jaakko Niska.
February: Anna-Stina Svakko x Aine Art Museum
More Information coming
March: YKON Playhouse x Aine Art Museum
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April: Romanikahvila-sarja x Aine Art Museum
More Information coming
May: Ida Isak Westerberg x Aine Art Museum
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June: Miljoonan puun talkoot x Aine Art Museum
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July: Anna Sailamaa x Aine Art Museum
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August: Sanna Haimila, Jouko Alapartanen, Kenneth Mikko x Aine Art Museum
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September: Taina Mäki-Iso x Aine Art Museum
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October: Pilvi Hyväri x Aine Art Museum
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November: Rusto Myllylahti x Aine Art Museum
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December: Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen x Aine Art Museum
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