Arts & entertainment
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Urban festival with flowing style
We check out what went on at this year’s Flow Festival – Helsinki’s urban celebration of unique music, style and design (includes slideshow).
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The core of the comic craze: Top 10
The Finnish comic scene is out to entertain, bemuse and show that it’s more than just superheroes.
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Roots and rhymes, reaching for the clouds
Singer-songwriter Yona is travelling an unusual path to indie popularity. It has taken her through church choirs, hip-hop, reggae and traditional Finnish songs.
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Bollywood honeymoon in Finland
The immensely popular film star Manisha Koirala and her husband Samrat Dahal chose Finland for a relaxing, unique honeymoon away from all the hype.
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Setting Senate Square on fire
When Arcade Fire rocked Helsinki on legendary Senate Square, history was written in more ways than one.
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Designing opera online: Opera By You
Anyone and everyone can participate in Opera By You, a unique project to create a production for the 2012 Savonlinna Opera Festival.
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Helsinki Music Centre in the making
Director Helena Hiilivirta leads us through the construction site where the long-overdue, much-debated building is taking shape.
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Alvar Aalto, designer
Browse this famous Finn's life and work on a custom-created website with photos and descriptions in English and French.
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Shouting with a Finnish twist
A choir called Huutajat has screamed its way to international cult status, yelling all the way from Oulu to Australia.
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Freezing frames at Sami film fest
Finland’s northernmost film festival, Skábmagovat, held every winter in Inari, Lapland, includes several outdoor screenings in an amphitheatre built of snow.
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Northern twist in Argentinean tango
As2wrists Dance Company takes its improvised style of tango from Finland to Argentina, the genre’s country of origin – and people love it.
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Design is Helsinki's destiny
In a decision announced on November 25, Helsinki becomes the World Design Capital for 2012, making Finland’s northern winter suddenly seem a lot brighter.
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Rock begins with J
One-third of all Finnish young people are into Japanese pop culture, including music, fashion, cartoons and more.
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Between memory and forgetting
Elina Hirvonen talks about her critically acclaimed novel When I Forgot, which offers a mix of Finnish and American perspectives on September 11, Iraq, Vietnam and the Second World War – and on love.
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Bad boy of accordion grows up but keeps attitude intact
Accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen pays scant heed to genre boundaries. Current projects include everything from a Kronos Quartet collaboration to Earth Machine Music, in which farm machines form the accompaniment.
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A tale of two countries
Gathering momentum: Singer-songwriter Anna Järvinen’s popularity is soaring in both Sweden, where she lives, and Finland, where she was born.
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Culture Gallery
Culture Gallery is a chic, interactive website that showcases the work of young, exciting Finnish artists and designers.
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Opening opera doors to the public
The Finnish National Opera is thinking outside the box seats to buck the genre's elitist image and bring in new fans.
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What Westerners weren't supposed to see
Finnish Estonian author Sofi Oksanen causes a stir with the subject matter and success of her newest novel, Purge, which has won just about every prize it possibly can.
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The Kanteletar
The Kanteletar’s ancient ballads form a companion work to the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic.
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Kalevala: the Finnish national epic
The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, has inspired generations of artists and helped shape the nation's identity.
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Finnish literature today
Finland has a relatively short literary history but boasts a booming modern book scene.
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Four men with harmonicas on the world music market
Until harmonica quartet Sväng hit the world music scene, most people had no idea that harmonicas could sound like this.
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Tapio Wirkkala
Designer Tapio Wirkkala's artworks can be seen in the world's most esteemed museums – and also in regular Finnish homes.
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Albert Edelfelt, master of plein air
Albert Edelfelt lived and painted in Paris for more than 15 years, becoming Finland's first cosmopolitan art icon.
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Lovable, instructive canines
Mauri Kunnas and his cast of canine characters succeed in bringing history and literature to life in his children’s books.
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Finlandia by Jean Sibelius
Finlandia forms Jean Sibelius's most famous composition. Read about it and listen to it here.
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OZ jewellery captivates with its clean lines
Welcome to the land of Oz – a jewellery shop run by a goldsmith and a silversmith in downtown Helsinki.
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Eero Saarinen: architect for a new world
A long-awaited exhibition about Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen continues its tour, now in the US.
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Alvar Aalto
The label "functionalism" does not do justice to describing the artistic achievement of architect and designer Alvar Aalto.
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Runeberg's values live on in Saarijärvi
What would J.L. Runeberg’s famous character Paavo of Saarijärvi say if he could see Finland today?
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Signmark does what he wants
The world's first deaf rapper, Signmark raps in sign language, taking a stand on issues that matter.
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Timo Sarpaneva
"People can carry their holidays with them, and rest when they wish," said Timo Sarpaneva, one of the greats of Finnish design.
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Current Affairs
- Helsinki urban art fest in your face 7/29/2010
- Finland’s Eurovision obsession 5/24/2010
- Moomin: 65 years of adventure 4/21/2010
- All that glitters in Helsinki 11/9/2009
- Traditional music on the air – and online 10/12/2009
- Levity and gravity in life and jazz 9/29/2009
- Pippi Longstocking leaps fearlessly into flamenco 8/21/2009
- Gritty and honest, Handsome Furs roar back into Finland 7/28/2009
- Myth, magic and music at the museum 6/24/2009
- Hanoi still rocks 4/22/2009
- Finnish cinema today 3/31/2009
- Amoc is rapping the Sámi language onto the map 3/26/2009
- The resurrection of Finnish fashion 3/9/2009
- Turning trash into treasures 2/19/2007
Published by the Finland Promotion Board.
Produced by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Department for Communications and Culture