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 21.2.2026 at 10.30
Lecture and workshop by Sámi artist Anna-Stina Svakko Lahkosat – Grannskap – Naapuruus – Neighborhood 21.2.2026 at Aine Art Museum – register!
February marks the Sámi National Day and Aine Art Museum will participate in the celebration by organizing a lecture and workshop by Sámi artist Anna-Stina Svakko, open to everyone, on Saturday 21.2.2026 from 10:30 to 15:00. Artist lecture from 10:30 to 12, workshop from 12:30 to 15:00. The language of the lecture is English. The languages of the workshop are English, Swedish and Northern Sámi.
Pre-registration is required for the workshop, maximum number of participants 20 people. The Aine Art Museum’s Café Aine will be open throughout the event. Participation in the event is free of charge.
The event is part of the Everyone’s Birthdays program series, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Aine Art Museum and Oulu as the European Capital of Culture.
Anna-Stina Svakko is an artist originally from Kiruna who works mainly with textile materials and costumes. In her artistic practice, Svakko often works with the topics of her roots, which are Sámi, Tornio Valley and Finnish.
Registration for the workshop Lahkosat – Grannskap – Naapuruus – Neighborhood.
Send an email to aine.taidemuseo@tornio.fi by 13.2.2026. Participation is free, you need to bring your own sewing equipment (thread, needles, pins) as well as 3 pieces of recycled fabric, size 20 x 20 cm and a black and white photo that is related to your own history: people or an important place to you.
The workshop places will be filled in the order of registration.
The artist’s lecture before the workshop is open to everyone.
March: YKON Playhouse x Aine Art Museum 14.3.2026 at 17
The artist collective YKON, founded in 2003 by the award-winning Finnish-German artist couple Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, will organize a social game, Play House, at the Aine Art Museum on Saturday, 14.3.2026 from 17:30-21:30. The event is part of the Aine Art Museum’s 40th anniversary celebration and the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture year. The event is open to everyone and admission is free. The event’s languages are Finnish and English.
The doors to the event open at 17:30 and you can arrive at the event until 18:30.
A group of strangers gather at the art museum on a Saturday evening. There are people, drinks, snacks and music in the space… And then, what happens? From the outside, the event looks like a party, but there are unobtrusive games going on. The artist group YKON welcomes the guests and gives them tasks. The event uses simple game mechanisms to explore and play with the interaction situation.
YKON is a collective that operated from 2003 to 2018, and it still activates the concepts it has created from time to time. The group has included many artists, designers and researchers over the years. The Play House event at Tornio will be led by Sauli Anetjärvi, Milan Braun, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen.
YKON members Telleo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen are also part of the Oulu2026 Climate Clock project: they will build the World’s Most Valuable Clock with the people of Oulu, which will later be on display at the Aine Art Museum in Tornio in 2026. They are known for their cinematic and performative artworks, which often involve the audience. The artist pair’s works have been exhibited around the world. They were awarded the Finnish AVEK Prize for Media Art in 2012 and Finland’s largest art award, Ars Fennica, in 2014.
April: Romanikahvila-sarja x Aine Art Museum
More Information coming
May: Ida Isak Westerberg x Aine Art Museum
More Information coming
June: Miljoonan puun talkoot x Aine Art Museum
More Information coming
July: Anna Sailamaa x Aine Art Museum
More Information coming
August: Sanna Haimila, Jouko Alapartanen, Kenneth Mikko x Aine Art Museum
More Information coming
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
More Information coming