It contains miniature works of art and an instruction booklet in Finnish with activities to help you get to know the artwork, consisting of sculptural painted pieces combined with objects used to care for house plants, such as watering balls, watering spikes and a piece of garden hose. It also features a video piece that can be viewed through a QR code on the media devices of each day-care centre.
Day care centres in Northern Ostrobothnia and Kainuu can reserve the miniature art cabinet free of charge for a period of 2–4 weeks, depending on the needs of other day-care centres in the municipality.
The Gardener miniature art cabinet weighs approximately 15 kg and is shipped by Posti. Please place the cabinet on a table before you begin to explore it. Gardener is a work commissioned by the Oulu Art Museum and realized by the artist. Book the miniature art cabinet for your childcare centre.
The Gardener has received a grant from the Finnish Heritage Agency.
Visual artist Kaija Hinkula
Kaija Hinkula usually works with large spatial entities and installations that combine paintings, sculptural elements and everyday objects with the exhibition space. The installations are viewed from different angles while moving within them. Hinkula’s work is situated in the context of extended painting, where two-dimensional painting is expanded into a spatial experience, mixed with the methods of sculpture and time and space arts.
In her work, the artist has sought to emphasise the power of dreams and imagination. The seeds and delicious fantasy colours represent growth and change, as well as hope and confidence in the future. “I believe dreaming is not an escape from reality, but a resource and a necessity in the world – a medium of freedom for new ideas, for the possibility of being different. Hope and the possibility of imagination encourage us to see the world in a different light, which can be inspiring, empowering and very necessary in today’s world”.
The Gardener miniature art cabinet is based on Hinkula’s previous Gardener series, which filled the main gallery of the Kunsthalle Turku in the autumn of 2024.
