The Summer Artist 2026: Gabriella Presnal

Meadow Pods -project

Gabriella Presnal is the tenth Summer Artist in Seinäjoki beginning their job on the 22^nd of June and ending the work period on the 23^rd of August 2026. Since the program has its anniversary year, the theme of the summer is celebration. During the summer, Gabriella Presnal will carry out the art project Meadow Pods that consists of multiple hollow, hanging sculptures containing meadow seeds within. Together with the artist, the local community will be invited to destroy the sculptures, releasing the seeds into local spaces to be enjoyed all by. The sculptures will be modeled after native seeds and uses bio composite; organic material sourced from the local community and foraging.

The project has been influenced by multiple celebrations that involve breaking, cracking, or smashing. Especially by Mexican piñatas, but similarly, the Greek Orthodox Botides, the Chinese folk ritual “whipping the spring cattle” (dǎ chūnniú), and the foraged flowers of midsummer, which are believed to aid in dreaming of future love. Many celebrate renewal, harvests, growth, and ecological rhythms.

The project asks: who gets to celebrate, how do we celebrate, and what are the implications of our festivities? How do they weave themselves into our environments, daily habits, and our memories? The project consists of participatory workshops and public events that are aiming to celebrate the local environment by creating space for hopes, dreams, and concrete actions for the environment.

Gabriella Presnal

Gabriella Presnal (b.2001, they/them) is a Finnish American artist having previously lived in Sweden, Canada, Denmark, and the U.S. Conceptually, they draw upon philosophies surrounding spatiality, publicness, and cultural memory. Alongside their own cultural background, an integral influence to their work has been Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s theories of nomad art wherein they apply the characteristics of spaces to textile methods.

For Presnal, multidisciplinary textiles then become a model for subverting, warping, and molding spaces. Many times, their works integrate community-centric and participatory approaches, having previously created projects surrounding precarity, post-anthropocentrism, utopias, queer international youth, and more.

Ongoing and upcoming works (summer 2026) from Presnal are currently with Amos Rex (Generation 2026), ArtOulu2026 (performance programming), a solo exhibition in MUU ry’s Ikkuna / Window Gallery (Helsinki), and the Rihmasto / Rhizome group exhibition at Haihatus (Joutsa). They have a history of exhibiting primarily in Finland as well as group exhibitions and festivals abroad, for example, in Brazil, Australia, Korea, Italy, Slovenia, and more. They have recently graduated from a dual master’s degree program in Nordic Visual Studies and Art Education from Aalto University and Aalborg University.

The Summer Artist program

Each summer since 2017, City of Seinäjoki has hired a visual artist or visual art student to work as the Summer Artist. The Summer Artist, “Kesäkuvataiteilija” in Finnish, works for two months with their own independent artistic project. The idea is to show different ways of making art, engage the local community and experience contemporary art in the making. The Summer Artist works at the Kunsthalle Seinäjoki and has the resources and support of the team and the Cultural Services of Seinäjoki. The theme of the project is different each year but there is always a strong emphasis on participatory and process-based work-methods and temporary public art.

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Follow the atist and the project

Follow the Summer Artist in social media channels on Facebook and Instagram during the summer. On the channel you can also access projects realized by Summer Artists from previous years. In addition, Kunsthalle Seinäjoki and City of Seinäjoki will share news about the Summer Artist in their own social media channels.

Summer Artist previous project: https://www.seinajoentaidehalli.fi/en/projects/

Instagram: @kesakuvataiteilija  @gabriellapresnal

Artist’s website: https://gabriellapresnal.com/