The Discombobulated Helsink Biennial 2025: Is Third Time the Charm? 

A few minutes into the walk, you realise you’re completely alone. Your fellow passengers from the boat that took you to the Vallisaari Island, the main location of the Helsinki Biennial, have disappeared into the woods. Occasionally, the song of birds gives way to the distant hum of the city traffic floating over the sea, reminding the visitor that the mainland is not as far as it seems despite the illusion of solitude. But right now, right here, amongst the forest ponds, mossy bunkers and wildflowers, time and mind begin to slow down.

Though this third edition of Helsinki Biennial unfolds across three different locations, its heart and soul are firmly rooted on the Vallisaari Island, a once restricted military zone that has served as the main backdrop for the biennial since its debut in 2021. Once again, the artworks that compose this year's exhibition delicately thread through the nature and history of the island. This year’s theme, “shelter”, is embodied in the carefully intentional placements of the pieces. Following the delicate soundscape of the island, the artworks themselves contribute to the silence by melting into the island’s landscape.

The power of the biennial lies in its modesty. Unlike the monumental spectacle that most biennials chase, Helsinki Biennial lets its works remain minimal, blending into the rock and soil of the island and the sea surrounding it. Some of the works, like Tue Greenfort’s Limulus Polyphemus Lampisaari (Pond Island), 2025,covered from sight behind rocks in shallow waters, would vanish completely without an occasional sign grabbing the viewers' attention. In a setting like this, the audience becomes a seeker. The walks in between the pieces feel like small pilgrimages where the audience is guided through solitude. One arrives to the island for art but gets lost in nature. This feeling evoked caters towards the goal of the biennial’s theme: coexistence with the non-human. While the artworks speak of grand, though slightly overused, themes such as natural crises and interspecies dependence, they do so without forced spectacle. On Vallisaari island, the biennial’s curators’ Bianca de la Torre and Kati Kivinen’s curation plays with humility, both in form and in tone.

The biennial shines in the tension it creates between art and space, spectacle and silence. Yet, this tension is also where its growing pains begin to show. Supporting Vallisaari Island, the event also takes place at Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) and the Esplanadi park in the city centre. Unfortunately, where the curation on the island feels intentional and sensitive to its site, the other venues struggle with coherency. The curation of these locations seems much lazier and thus weaker compared to Vallisaari, especially at Helsinki Art Museum (HAM). The grand curatorial texts with big words and vague art-speak promise a lot, yet the artworks themselves do not deliver. On the level of ideas, most of the artworks at HAM seem sort of half-done, sometimes also even on the level of execution. None of the works evoke the viewers interest individually. Though the texts claim otherwise, nearly nothing new or interesting is being said.

Additionally, the park display at Esplanadi feels a bit more like a promotional gesture than genuine curation. The spatial rhythm and well-paced contemplation present on the island are completely lacking here. This attempt to bring the biennial to the heart of the city feels like an awkward interruption instead of the smooth intervention of art within urban life it clearly wants to be.

What piqued my interest at all the locations was the exclusion of the artists’ nationalities; a move that helps free both the artist, the artwork, and the viewer from geographic biases and expectations. It allows the art and the artists to be experienced on their own terms, not as representatives of their respective countries unlike in Venice, where national representation is an essential part of the biennial’s core purpose. Considering geographical representation, it is impossible not to notice the abundance of Sámi artists, like the duo Jenni Laiti & Carl-Johan Utsi and their video Teardrops of Our Grandmother, 2023.

The presence of a few high-profile names such as Yayoi Kusama and Olafur Eliasson adds to the confusion. While such inclusions might add to the broader audience’s curiosity, they sit uncomfortably within the otherwise subtle and reflective tone of the biennial. There is a fine line between strategy and cheap spectacle, and in this case, the latter has started to overshadow the first. This loud measure of courting audiences raises a question: Who is this biennial really for? International audiences, the local community, or the circuits of the global art world? Unlike at bigger biennials, there is no great biannual pilgrimage to Helsinki during the event; the audience consists mostly of locals and tourists who were coming to the city anyway.

The broader ambitions of the Helsinki Biennial remain slightly tangled. As stated on the biennial’s website, its goals include transforming Helsinki “into an art capital with wide appeal as a cultural destination” and “to establish Helsinki Biennial as one of the most well-known biennials in the world”. These ambitions sit uneasily next to its most successful aspects: intimacy, reflection, and modesty. Bigger is not always better, and a smaller player trying to fill in bigger shoes has the risk of creating something awkwardly in-between. The biennial’s future shouldn’t include competing with bigger ones but resisting their models altogether. In the end, what Helsinki Biennial gives us is not answers but atmospheres. A promenade in nature, paced by art. An open question about being human in a world bigger than humanity. And maybe that’s enough, not to make Helsinki the next global art capital, but to make it something rarer: a place where art doesn’t demand attention but waits quietly for the right audience to find it.