The Weight of Air
Public artwork for Sorrila School, Valkeakoski, Finland
2025
Tinted acrylic, steel wire
Approx. 2,000 words
I create my artworks specifically for a particular building and its meanings. When beginning this work, I found myself reflecting on school as a place where adults communicate to children what they should know, what matters, and what is expected of them. Schools are places where many hopes and pressures directed at children quietly gather.
A translated excerpt from the conversations behind the artwork: “… that was the problem: they felt able to tell me… but they didn’t dare tell the coach.”
In recent years, public discussion has increasingly focused on the pressures experienced by children and young people. School performance, goal-oriented hobbies, social media, and appearance expectations all shape the experience of growing up. While planning this work, I began wondering where these growing pressures come from. Do children and young people reflect something tense in the adult world around them?
To explore this theme, I invited conversations with adults whose children would eventually attend the newly built Sorrila School.
A translated excerpt from the conversations behind the artwork: “… then this exact thing happened to them: they basically put the brakes on completely a year ago, and the competition season ended there… now they do it again, yes, but in this kind of recreational group.”
The artwork is based on interviews conducted during spring, summer, and autumn 2024 with teachers, parents, and members of the school community. We discussed hopes, expectations, and the contradictions of adult life: how we simultaneously wish things for children while also placing demands on them — and how we ourselves navigate ambition, disappointment, care, and uncertainty.
The conversations generated nearly 150 pages of transcribed text. From this material, I selected 182 sentences, varying in length, which together form the final sculpture of almost 2,000 words. The sentences are suspended from the ceiling in flowing strands that gently move with air currents, creating reflections that shift with changing daylight and seasons.
A translated excerpt from the conversations behind the artwork: “Of course it is a disappointment if you don’t achieve something, don’t reach something. And especially if you have worked hard for it. I think that taking a broader perspective on things… gives perspective on where I myself am at that moment. In a way, it means returning to the basics, and listing in your mind the things you are grateful for and what you can still do…”
A translated excerpt from the conversations behind the artwork: “If it has to do with myself — the disappointment or whatever it is — I try to think that this path was not meant for me. There are many other options meant for me.”
The text is written in a style resembling the cursive handwriting taught in Finnish schools — a script familiar to many adults. Fittingly, the typeface turned out to be called Learning Curve.
This created an unexpected connection to the artwork’s central idea: learning. Not only school learning, but the lifelong learning of how to balance expectations, ambition, disappointment, joy, and uncertainty. What makes a meaningful life? What is enough? How do we balance perseverance with kindness toward ourselves?
A translated excerpt from the conversations behind the artwork: “… that if something doesn’t work out, you can look at your own expectations and ask: why was this meaningful? Is it something that is actually worth caring about at all, or is it something you should forget and move on from…”
A translated excerpt from the conversations behind the artwork: “… that whatever happens, tomorrow is a new day, and we keep practising this life…”
The artwork does not attempt to provide final answers. Instead, it reflects on learning, care, love, and life in all their contradictions.
A translated excerpt from the conversations behind the artwork: “I still don’t know what I’ll be when I grow up either.”
Photo: Sami Saastamoinen
Production
The artwork contains nearly 2,000 individually cut words, produced from acrylic sheets in Tampere and assembled into sentences by hand. Installation took place over several weeks at the school with the help of assistants, fabricators, and installers.
Because the school building was still under construction during installation, parts of the work were assembled on site in the gymnasium and central hall before being suspended from the ceiling.
The sentences of the artwork in installation order, each sentence in its own box.
During the production of the artwork, the school was not yet in use, so the gymnasium stands were used for several weeks to assemble the words of the artwork. In the photo, Johanna, who worked as the artist’s assistant on the project, is assembling the words.
The words still have their protective films on them. To protect the artwork from dents and scratches, the protective films were removed only just before each sentence was attached to the ceiling.
The sentences of the artwork were attached to the ceiling using a lift. The photo shows the lift in the area that is now the school cafeteria. In the upper right corner, the artist and installer are discussing the installation of the artwork. Photo: Johanna Havimäki
Installation work during the second week of installation, with Sami in the lift.
Handing a sentence up to the lift. Photo: Johanna Havimäki
Meaning of the title
The Weight of Air refers both to the visual lightness of the sculpture and to the question: What does air weigh?
Air pressure changes according to circumstances. The same is true of how life feels — as a child or an adult — depending on the pressures surrounding us.
In weather forecasts, falling pressure brings rain. The sculpture takes the form of a summer rainfall, and my hope is that it creates a place within the school where pressure softens for a moment — a place to breathe.
All photos of the finished work are by Sami Saastamoinen
The sentences of the artwork create reflections on the walls, their locations changing according to the seasons and the time of day.
A translated excerpt from the conversations behind the artwork: “… and not every day is dancing in the clouds; there is quite a lot of ordinary everyday life too, and you can also make that into something… good.”
P.S.
… a kind of bonus section to the artwork
What happens to the dots of the letters i, j, ä and ö?
When words are suspended in the air, won’t the dots fall to the floor?
The school has several glass partition walls and doors, which required safety stickers to prevent collisions.
I was asked to come up with an idea for these. For this purpose, I designed an image motif in which the dots of the letters i, j, ä and ö seem to fall from the artwork and continue their own adventure in the glass decals.
The dots can be spotted not only on the doors leading to the main lobby on the second and third floors, but also in door decals elsewhere in the school.
On closer inspection, the dots are not round — they have been created using dots taken from the lettering of the artwork itself.
The artwork can be seen in the school’s main lobby whenever the school is open — either for everyday school activities or for events in the multipurpose hall. The address is Koulukatu 13, Valkeakoski, Finland.
Acknowledgements
Creating a public artwork is, in many ways, less like making a single painting and more like making a film. Although the artistic responsibility rests with the artist, the work can only come into being through the contribution, skill and goodwill of many people.
I would like to thank all the parents and teachers who took part in the interviews for this artwork. Without their openness and generosity, the work would not exist.
My warm thanks to Antti and Tunkua Oy for the many rounds of prototyping and for cutting the final artwork from acrylic; to Katri and Hervannan Kuriiri for transporting the parts of the artwork to the school; and to Heidi, Antti and Johanna for helping assemble the words into sentences.
Thank you to Sami and Mari for the installation of the artwork, and to Pasi, Marianne and the team at Skanska for preparing the site and supporting the installation process.
I am also grateful to Annika, Tuomas and everyone at the City of Valkeakoski who contributed to the project, and to my colleague Hanna Vihriälä for wire consulting and emotional support.
Special thanks to the fire inspector, who carefully studied the artwork and confirmed that it could be safely produced as planned, and to the many helpful specialists, suppliers and craftspeople who assisted with the technical details along the way.
Finally, thank you to my spouse, friends and colleagues for their support throughout the process.
