Aine Art Museum in Tornio is set to turn 40 years old in March 2026.
As part of the anniversary year celebrations, the museum will be hosting a retrospective exhibition entitled And I Became Human, showcasing the work of much-loved Photographer Jaakko Heikkilä. The exhibition will present a broad spectrum of Heikkilä’s work, spanning the early 1990s to the 2020s, and will be on display at Aine Art Museum from 8 March to 30 August 2026.
Jaakko Heikkilä is one of northern Finland’s most significant and internationally renowned contemporary artists. Born in Kemi in 1956, he works in the Kukkolankoski rapids area of the Tornio River Valley.
Heikkilä first became known to a wider audience in the 1990s with his works Our Land (1992) and Bright Humility (1996), which explored the people and culture of the Tornio River Valley. Since then, Heikkilä’s photography has taken him to Armenia, Russia, Serbia, Italy, the USA, Norway, the UK, Brazil, Mexico and Cuba.
Heikkilä’s photographs often provide an insight into various communities, minority cultures, and the related phenomena. His images are deeply human, touching, and often with a soft hint of humour. The subjects of his photographs include Venetian aristocrats, Armenians, Wallachians, and Pomors, as well as some of Finland’s wealthiest people.
Heikkilä has held numerous major solo exhibitions at venues such as the National Museum of Finland in 2016 and 2022, the Finnish Museum of Photography 2011, and the Venice Biennale 2005. His solo exhibition Mykempi ko kala (‘Quieter than fish’) took place at Aine Art Museum in 1994, followed by Armenian vaietut tarinat (‘Armenia’s silenced stories’) in 2007.
Heikkilä won the Lapland Art prize in 1993, the State Prize for Photographic Art in 2007, and the Barents Scholarship for Cultural Cooperation in 2017.
Heikkilä explains the significance Aine Art Museum holds for him:
“We moved to Kukkola in autumn 1989. Aine Art Museum quickly became very close to my heart, a kind of living room that could transport me into the arts, a restaurant of thoughts, a source of inspiration.”
The opening of the exhibition will be celebrated with an event open to all at Aine Art Museum on Sunday 8 March 2026 at 13:00. This will be preceded by an invitational event on 7 March 2026.
Jaakko Heikkilä And I Became Human
8 March – 30 August 2026
Aine Art Museum, Torikatu 2, 95400 Tornio