1.8.2025
Emmi Kairenius: Urban Play Video Screening
Workshop space Itikka
Free of charge
When was the last time you went off your everyday track and spent a spontaneous moment among the lampposts, or stopped for a moment to find out how to play with an interesting-looking urban element? Or how to take space in the middle of the busy crowd in Provinssi and get others to play with you on their way past!
Urban Play in Seinäjoki
Throughout the summer, Emmi Kairenius, the Summer Artist 2025 of the City of Seinäjoki, has explored the possibilities for play in Seinäjoki through art and recorded the moments on video. Emmi Kairenius’ art is spontaneous and playful, and has repetitive elements, which she uses to explore the everyday environment in a physical way. The video shows familiar environments like the library in the city centre, the station, streets, parking lots, Kalevan Navetta and Provinssi. You are welcome to watch, what the summer of the Summer Artist who plays with the city, has looked like!
The video will be on display only on Friday 1.8. from 11am to 7pm. Free admission to the screening and Kunsthalle Seinäjoki exhibitions. Follow the Summer Artist on social media channels on Facebook and Instagram @kesakuvataiteilija and @emmikairenius.
Emmi Kairenius (b. 1993, Sammatti) is the ninth Summer Artist of the City of Seinäjoki. This year, she worked from 2nd of June to 3rd of August 2025. During the summer, Kairenius carried out an art project in which she worked as the official professional playmaker of the City of Seinäjoki. Kairenius explores the play possibilities of the built environment of Seinäjoki through a bodily participatory approach, i.e. by playing with the structures and elements of the city. For Kairenius, play is a way to perceive the everyday environment in a new way and to test alternative ways of experiencing places. Kairenius also invited the local community into experimental play by organising open-to-all play tours of the built environment, as well as video screenings of the documentation of the project. The Department of Urban Play, run by Kairenius, opened in July at Art and Culture Centre Kalevan Navetta, offering play tips for different locations in the city, as well as other expert services to guide experimental play. During the summer, it was possible to meet the professional playmaker at Kalevan Navetta’s summer events, as well as in everyday environments in the city.
About the Summer Artists Programme
Since 2017, the City of Seinäjoki has hired a professional artist or visual arts student as a Summer Artist. The Summer Artist does artistic work that is in some way visible to or engages the citizens of the city. The Summer Artist is based at Kunsthalle Seinäjoki and has the support of the staff of Kunsthalle and the City’s cultural services. The projects and forms of work carried out by the Summer Artist come from the artist themselves: each Summer Artist’s summer is unique to them.
