Teaching period: 18–29 May 2026
Location: Uniarts Helsinki (exact locations TBA)
Teacher(s): Karin Lind and Simon Häggblom (SIMKA)
ECTS: 4 ECTS
Number of available places for KUNO students: 10
Level: BA / MA
Requirements: Physical skill and craftsmanship; artistic creativity and curiosity.
Application deadline: March 20th, 2026
How to apply:
Please submit through ONLINE FORM including a motivation letter (max. 200 words) in pfd.
Course description
Learning outcomes:
The importance of cultivation for protection and survival.
Human beings’ relationship to vegetation in rural and urban environments.
Vertical cultivation changes the perspective on growing.
The vertical, such as the lines in the drawing of the construction, how it becomes other forms fulfils various needs for animals and humans.
We incorporate green walls into the city in the sculptural design and consider what kind of ecosystem this can provide for people in the city.
Our need to cultivate (breathing, therapy, food, aesthetics, seasons, climate, periods, etc.).
Course content
Work together with artists Karin Lind and Simon Häggblom to understand and research the relationship of human beings to plants and vegetation for our survival and protection through cultivation, collection and construction. Intensive discussion, hands-on working, and collective outcomes!
Completion methods
Build a sculpture in the backyard together. The base consists of wooden materials and wooden slats (both large and small) and “Ukraine net” – fabrics cut in camouflage colours: green, white, grey, brown, ochre, echoing the colours of the Plane tree.
Protective nets.
These nets are made while we converse about sculptural landscapes, vegetation and collective work.
We create a space based on organic plant materials.
The work can take place both indoors and outdoors.
Vegetation and cultivation:
Integrated into the design (built into or onto the sculptural form); the design in clusters is added to and there may possibly be some part that is a greenhouse, acting as an incubator where “plants can transform humans into plants”, as a the text by Han Kang Jang or in the film by Shirin Neshat where she is swallowed by the tree.
Collective creation:
Work together in a workshop format.
This includes theory, conversation, and play.
Financial support by KUNO:
Travel support between countries: 330 € (except 660 € to/from Iceland)
Subsistence: 250 € per week (5-7 days), 100€ per second week.
General KUNO Eligibility Rules:
- only BA and MA full-degree students from the KUNO network schools can participate;
-exchange students from other institutions, which do not belong to the KUNO network, studying at one of the KUNO network schools, CANNOT participate;
- full-degree students from the KUNO network schools, currently on exchange at another institution, CANNOT participate (neither with nor without the KUNO grant).
Further information on the course content: andrew.best-dunkley@uniarts.fi
Further information on applying and practical matters: kuva.international@uniarts.fi
