Exhibition IHOLLA – LACE ON SKIN opens at the Rauma Art Museum on 12.6.
The lace exhibition IHOLLA – LACE ON SKIN, which opens on the 12th of June 2021, is a new opening for the traditional collaboration between the Rauma Museum, the Rauma Art Museum and Rauma Lace Week. Curated by designer Paola Suhonen, the exhibition also features fashion designers Sasu Kauppi and Noora Vihervirta, as well as Pitsikeskus Emelia Association and Nyplääjät Association. Art from Susanna Majuri and lace costumes familiar from Finland’s Indepence Day Reception are also on display.
The joint summer exhibition of the Art Museum and the Rauma Museum was created around a shared theme, ”on skin”. A multidisciplinary working group formed from two professional museums was led by Suhonen, and was set out to reflect on lace-related traditions, images and perceptions. Colours and words have played an important role in the construction of the exhibition as well.
– Lace is not a neutral thing. It has been interesting to reflect on the tense history of lace from an artistic perspective. The lace maker or wearer, or even the colour, shape, and thread of the lace, value the lace in a certain way, says Heta Kaisto, museum curator of the Rauma Art Museum.
Designer Sasu Kauppi was inspired by the idea of “digital lace”, while Rauma-based young designer Noora Vihervirta’s latest collection combines Rauma lace-making, mushroom mycelium and dressing gowns from the 1940s in a fascinating way. Due to the experimental nature of the presentation, only little historical lace can be found in the exhibition.
– We wanted lace to be lifted off display cases back on skin and to physical environments. We wanted to immerse it under water and lift it into the air, says museum curator Minna-Liisa Salonsaari.
– In the exhibition, we have toyed with the idea that lace is like Rauma’s nature, it is such an integral part of the city’s history and way of life. The collaboration between the two museums and the city festival under the leadership of Suhonen has been a great way to approach the subject in a polyphonic manner. It feels like the decades-long cooperation between the three units has been at least partly reinvented, museum curator Heta Kaisto rejoices.
The joint exhibition of the Rauma Museum and the Rauma Art Museum, IHOLLA – LACE ON SKIN, is on display from the 12th of June to the 26th of September 2021 at the Rauma Art Museum (Kuninkaankatu 37).