Soils and Arts Festival Finland 2026
Location: Lahti, Finland
The Finnish Soils and Arts Festival consists of two parts, a thematic session “ARTS AND SOILS” and a set of exhibition ensembles, both presented as part of the Lahti Science Day on 17 November 2026.
The festival aims to inspire a deeper appreciation of soil and encourage us all to care for this vital part of our planet.
ARTS AND SOILS – Soil awareness, art and arts-based approaches
The thematic session explores how soil awareness can be cultivated through art and arts-based methods. Produced within the SOILSCAPE project, the programme brings together research, artistic thinking, and participatory practices.
1. SOILSCAPE and artistic thinking
Professor Helinä Melkas & Dr Anne Pässilä, LUT University
The session examines the development of soil awareness through art and arts-based methods.
The starting point is the SOILSCAPE project (Horizon Europe), introduced by Professor Helinä Melkas (LUT University). The session brings together research, artistic thinking, and participatory practices, asking how our understanding of soil can be deepened through sensory, experiential, and communal approaches.
A discussion moderated by Dr Anne Pässilä (LUT University) opens a dialogue with SOILSCAPE artists on thinking that occurs through and with art. Artistic thinking is presented as a form of knowledge creation that transcends the boundaries between science and everyday life, enabling new ways of encountering soil as a living and diverse system.
2. Soil is Art (SIA) performance lecture, parts I and II
Artist: Ellenor Rose Nish
The theme is further explored through artist Ellenor Rose Nish’s Soil is Art performance lecture, which invites participants to experience soil through the perspectives of care, interdependence, and life-supporting relationships.
3. Kahvimaa installation and performance lecture, parts I and II
Artist: Laura Mellanen
Artist Laura Mellanen’s Kahvimaa (Coffee land) installation highlights the systemic connections of soil through a space of everyday encounter. The installation builds bridges between personal experience and planetary processes, making visible the connections between soil, culture, food, and society.
4. Arts-based teaching in landscape design
Dr Anne Pässilä, LUT University & Dr Sari Suomalainen, Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK)
The presentation on arts-based teaching in landscape design by Dr Anne Pässilä and Dr Sari Suomalainen demonstrates how soil awareness can be integrated into pedagogical frameworks and professional learning.
Exhibition ensembles
Complementing the thematic session, the exhibition ensembles open multiple sensory and interpretive perspectives on soil.
Urban Soil Literacies (USL)
Urban Soil Literacies (USL) is an artistic project by Ronja Tammenpää that encourages urban residents to reconnect with soil. The work explores the urban environment as a place-based and living entity in which interspecies dialogue and the human relationship with soil take centre stage. It invites city dwellers to challenge colonial modes of thinking and to rebuild everyday connections with soil and its well-being.
Soil Memory – Living Images of Urban Soil (LIMUS)
Soil Memory – Living Images of Urban Soil (LIMUS) is an artistic project by Johanna Rotko and Tommi Mattila, examining soil life and memory through a dialogue between artistic practice and soil-related research. At Lahti Science Day, LIMUS will take the form of a multisensory installation and temporary field laboratory combining an artist encounter, video work, images created using beneficial microbes, soil materials, and process samples. The project brings together art, scientific knowledge, and the invisible life of soil: microbes, soil fauna, natural materials, light, and image-making. Through moving image, photography, microbial materials, light, textures, and scientifically informed artistic interpretation, visitors are invited to explore the hidden processes of soil.
Soil is Art (SIA) performance
Artist Ellenor Rose Nish’s work deepens understanding of soil by fostering connections between people and soil. It combines scientific knowledge with artistic research, highlighting the significance of soil and its relationship to well-being. The work focuses particularly on promoting soil health and increasing awareness among adult audiences.
Kahvimaa installation and performance lecture
Artist Laura Mellanen’s work combines performativity, installation, sensory engagement, and participation, translating scientific knowledge about soil into a lived experience. The work moves between personal memory, cultural rituals, and the global ecological crisis, making visible the interdependence of coffee and soil.
Soil Grows from Me
Soil Grows from Me is a multisensory and participatory photographic arts education project by drama pedagogue and lecturer Lasse Kantola and contributors from SDO Theatrum Olga. The work expresses the living and experiential relationship to soil developed by young participants during an arts and environmental education process. The arts and environmental education practices of SDO Theatrum Olga combine performance art, communal learning, and ecological awareness.
More information about the event – Lahti Science Day
https://lahdenyliopistokeskus.fi/lahden-tiedepaiva/
Lahti Science Day is an open and free public science event that does not require advance registration.
The ARTS AND SOILS – Soil awareness, art and arts-based approaches thematic session will be conducted in Finnish.