Roots: Kustaa Saksi’s Monumental Installation at Institut Finlandais, Paris

ParisArts and CultureKustaa SaksiExhibitions
Written By Dutch Uncle

Racines/Roots
7 Nov 2025 – 21 Feb 2026
@institutfinlandais — 60 rue des Écoles, Paris

Kustaa Saksi showcases a 15-metre woven pine tree in the Institut Finlandais and brings it into the space with a quiet, practical confidence.

The installation, created with jacquard weaving and Japanese washi paper yarns mixed with viscose, stretches across the gallery as a single suspended form. It shows a pine torn from the ground and held in mid-air, a direct study of resilience, fragility, and the pull of nature on memory.

Kustaa traces the idea back to childhood along the Gulf of Finland, where wind-bent pines shaped the skyline. Those forms stayed with him. Here he uses them to look at belonging, identity, and the balance between movement and place.

The pine appears often in the work of Pekka Halonen (1865–1933), a Finnish painter known for clear depictions of forests, winter light, and rural life. Halonen’s relationship with landscape was intimate and steady. Kustaa’s suspended tree follows that line in a new material form.


Halonen’s work can be explored further at the Petit Palais exhibition Pekka Halonen, An Ode to Finland: https://www.petitpalais.paris.fr/expositions/pekka-halonen

Kustaa’s practice links contemporary textile work with northern identity. His tapestries use natural fibres in ways that echo Pekka’s connection to the land. The pine motif links both artists across a century.

The scale of his work suits the space at the Institut finlandais, and his international profile supports a programme aimed at opening dialogue across art forms, eras, and audiences. The fit is both thematic and practical.

Racines/Roots is part of A season in dialogue with Pekka Halonen, building a clear conversation between Halonen’s paintings and Kustaa’s textile language. Together they form a view of the northern landscape shaped by memory and carried forward in new materials.

Photography by @vinciane_lebrun

Further Reading

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