Laura Põld
3rd Helsinki Biennial, Finland
8 June – 21 September 2025
The Helsinki Biennial was founded in 2016 as an international contemporary art event located outside the city on Vallisaari Island, a former military site with wild nature and a rich urban heritage. This setting informs the exhibition, which concentrates on values of sustainability and responsibility. For the 2025 edition, curators Blanca de la Torre and Kati Kivinen will focus on ecology from both a practical and conceptual perspective. For her participation, artist Laura Põld will create a series of new ceramic sculptures and carpets. Employing hand-made techniques and plant-dyed wool, the carpets will depict a populated landscape, inspired by mythological figures and rugged, moss-covered Nordic terrain. Her ceramic sculptures will be placed near the water on Vallisaari Island. Imitating natural forms such as roots and trees, they will over time gather seaweed, water and stones. As such, they will form a natural and ever-changing environment of fauna and flora, reflecting on the unpredictability of nature and life itself.
Laura Põld (born 1984) is an Estonian artist who lives and works in Vienna. She studied Ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Painting at the University of Tartu, and Sculptural Conceptions and Ceramics at the University of Art and Design Linz. She is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Installation and Sculpture at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and is a co-curator in the 2024 QMA Artist Collective, Vienna. Põld is interested in traditional craft and combines textiles and sculptures in her installations to address themes of community, caring and material culture. Her work has been exhibited at LOOK! gallery, Riga; MO museum, Vilnius; Tromsø kunstforening; AV17 Gallery, Vilnius; Kunstverein Eisenstadt; Kogo Gallery, Tartu; Austrian Cultural Forum Warsaw; Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga; Titanik Gallery, Turku; Kommod, Vienna; Halle für Kunst Steiermark, Graz; Kunstraum Memphis; Gallery Tallinn and Studio #211, ISCP, New York.
This is the her first collaboration with Phileas. This project results from a research trip to Vienna by curator Blanca de la Torre in May 2024 at the invitation of Phileas.
