The Summer Artist 2025: Emmi Kairenius

Emmi Kairenius (b. 1993, Sammatti) is the ninth Summer Artist of the City of Seinäjoki. This year’s working period is 2.6. – 3.8.2025. During the summer, Emmi Kairenius will carry out an art project in which she works as the official professional playmaker of the City of Seinäjoki. In this role, she explores possibilities of the play in Seinäjoki’s built environment through embodied participation—by engaging in playful interaction with the city’s structures and elements. For Kairenius, play is a way to perceive everyday surroundings in a new light and to test alternative ways of experiencing places. She invites the local community to take part in experimental play through open-to-all excursions into the built environment. In July, the Department of Urban Play, maintained by Kairenius, will open at Kalevan Navetta. The Department provides the latest play tips for various city sites and other consultancy toward experimental play. Throughout the summer, the professional playmaker can be encountered not only at the Department of Urban Play at Kalevan Navetta’s summer events, but also around the city in everyday environments.

Emmi Kairenius

Emmi Kairenius (b. 1993, Sammatti) is a visual artist based in Rovaniemi, Finland. Through her artistic practice, Kairenius explores the daily urban environment and public space. Her work is characterized by embodied and repetitive engagement with the surroundings—through observation of change, collecting found objects, and playfully interacting with elements of the city. Her works are public performative processes that at times take the form of video, photography, or installation. Kairenius earned her Master of Arts degree from the University of Lapland in 2024 and is currently pursuing doctoral studies in art. She has participated in exhibitions and, alongside working in gallery contexts, has been actively engaged in process-based art situated in urban environments.