Ella Tahkolahti (Hall 2):
Mother’s Fabrics

Ella Tahkolahti’s exhibition explores dementia, material inheritance, and the relationship between mother and daughter.  

As part of the exhibition, Tahkolahti presents the performative work Umbilical Cord. This open-duration performance takes place on weekends during the exhibition’s opening hours.  

Mother’s Fabrics exists at the intersection of textile and installation art. The body of work is built around fabrics and tools the artist received from her mother as an advance inheritance, which serve as both a concrete and symbolic point of departure.  

At the centre of the exhibition are large-scale textile works that form part of a larger spatial whole. Removed from the context of utilitarian textiles, the works become an installation that enters into dialogue with the exhibition space, with one another, and with the viewer.  

The work as a whole engages with ambiguous loss — a condition in which a loved one is still present, yet changed by dementia. The two-sidedness of the works — the front and reverse, whose boundary is not always clear — refers to the confusion of perception and meaning that is characteristic of the illness. The exhibition examines the blurring of memory, reality, and identity, as well as the prolonged process of grief connected to it. 

Despite its personal point of departure, the exhibition also connects to a broader social context. Dementia affects a growing number of people, and Mother’s Fabrics opens up perspectives on how art can help us articulate the change, loss, and complex emotions associated with it. 

The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Serlachius Residency, and Svenska Kulturfonden. 

Notice! Opening hours: Tuesday–Thursday 12–18, Friday–Sunday 12–16