Artikkeli

From a boulevard of memories to wind and snow

Walking is at the core of the human experience, but it rarely receives special attention in everyday life. We all purposefully stride back home after a hard day’s work, enjoy invigorating strides in the fresh air, and struggle against the forces of nature when the weather turns bad. Every person’s gait is unique, but cultural norms also influence the way we walk.

Walking helps us think. It increases understanding of oneself and the environment. In pilgrimages, for example, the journey itself is more important than the actual geographical destination.

Some things may be easier to discuss while walking. The cultural and symbolic dimensions of walking are unparalleled, whether we are talking about terrestrial hiking, a carbon footprint or an apostolic journey.

A comprehensive examination of walking

On Foot examines how artists and scientists have addressed this fundamental activity over the past two hundred years and have reflected upon what walking says about us as humans.

I wanted to make a research-based exhibition about walking and invited Carlos Idrobo, who was born in Colombia but lives in Finland, to be guest curator. Idrobo, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, has investigated walking as a motif in visual art in both his doctoral dissertation and subsequent articles.

He has examined, for example, the role of the traditional roundpole fence as a factor that restricts movement and shapes walking practices in the context of Finnish visual art. Walking is also a central theme in Idrobo’s artistic production.

Artists inspired by scientific research

Scientific insights into the physiology of walking have inspired various forms of expression in visual art. In the 19th century, for example, walking was studied using photography and empirical observations.

English photographer Eadweard Muybridge, French anatomist Paul Richer and German scientists Karl von Vierordt, Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Eduard Friedrich Weber have left their mark on the history of the visual representation of walking.

Images of these scientific experiments and their results influenced the way many early 20th century art movements, such as Cubism and Futurism, expressed reality.

The exhibition, spread over two floors at Serlachius Headquarters, is based on the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation’s own collection, but also includes works on loan from other collections. Finnish and international contemporary artists are represented with both new and slightly older works.

The works illustrate walking as a motif and a practice not only from a historical perspective, but also during different seasons and different stages of life. The exhibition’s paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, videos and installations present a diverse examination of human walking.

By focusing on a single function, the exhibition illuminates broader questions related to time and our experience of it, social relationships, belonging, the environment, war, and more everyday struggles.

On Foot illustrates the kind of traces our movements leave both on the physical environment and in our memory. One section of the exhibition focuses on works that not only depict walking, but in which the physical act of walking has played a decisive role in their creation.

Painful moments in history and childhood memories

Some of the works, such as Jari Silomäki’s series of works We Are the Revolution (2013), allude to painful points in history. The series, named after a work by German Joseph Beuys, consists of photographs in which Silomäki has depicted himself walking through sites of historical tragedies, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau or Tiananmen Square.

In contrast, some of the works, such as Tiina Heiska’s paintings of children walking hand in hand, activate warm memories of childhood and togetherness.

International artists represented include, the English artist David Blandy, whose animations Ice, Sea and Sunset (2015) combine the aesthetics of computer games with the rugged, romantic hiking landscapes familiar from the works of the German artist Caspar David Friedrich.

Blandy’s animation Background (2013), in turn, illustrates how central a role walking can play in facilitating conversation. The Estonian artist Adamson-Eric’s watercolour Composition (1924) is an excellent example of how scientific studies of walking are reflected in Modernist expression.

On Foot will be on display at Serlachius Headquarters from 26 September 2026 to 21 February 2027.

This article was published in Finnish in Serlachius’ customer magazine in May 2026.