Introducing Jukka Savolainen, the FCINY's New Board Chair

Jukka Savolainen serves as the Director at Design Museum in Helsinki and, in 2021, began his role as Board Chair at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York. The FCINY’s Jae Cameron sat down for a virtual chat with Jukka to learn more about his connection to New York and vision for the Institute in the upcoming years. The discussion wove through the impact of COVID-19 across countries, the generative value of residencies, and a hope for lasting resilience - from COVID-19 to climate change.

During the interview, both Jukka and Jae reflected on their missed NYC spaces, from Jukka’s fondness for Nolita’s Cafe Habana, “very small, very crowded, impossible to make a reservation, and very much New York” to the lasting vibrance of the New York arts scene. Their full conversation follows below.

What brought you to the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York?

One of the reasons that I came to join the Institute is that I used to work in NYC at two points in my early career, in 2000 and 2001-2002. When I first came to NYC in 2000, I didn’t know anything about the Institute, having studied abroad in Scotland and moving straight from Scotland to New York. My first interaction with the Institute was as a young person, on my own, in this exciting big city.

The first FCINY event I attended was a Finnish film screening in Bryant Park, behind the library, hosted with the Finnish Embassy. Later on, I was working for a company called Material Connexion who was very active in organizing NYC-based events, and had met the Institute’s director at one of those events.

I still try to come to New York as many times as I can to visit friends and their family. From those periods in 2000-2002, I got to know many people that I’m still involved with through my work as well.

The FCINY has roots throughout Finland and the United States, with local offices in New York City. As a Finland-based design leader, what’s your connection to New York - and what do you feel the city offers artists-in-residence?

I lost my heart to NYC when I was there for the first time and it still holds a very dear place in my heart.

I think anybody who comes to NYC either feels that or hates NYC - it’s one or the other, I don’t think there’s a middle way.

I think for artists and creatives, being in New York is such an exciting place because there’s so much happening in the creative scene. It’s so vibrant. I think that the impulses you get from NYC are enormous, and when you get to know the local scene when you’re an artist, or architect, or designer, you get sucked in to how they work and how the creative scene works. It’s why the FCINY residencies are so important.

How do you feel that’s changed with COVID-19? What kinds of questions are you holding with the impact of travel restrictions and social distancing on residencies, museums, and design institutions?

I hope that New York will never change, that it will never lose its appeal and its heart. But of course now, with travel being so restricted and the rollout of vaccinations, it will take time for things to get back to normal - and we still do not know what the new normal is. In Finland, museums remain closed during the pandemic. Most on site activities have been limited or shut down due to COVID-19 and the immediate effects to artists, musicians, individual creatives have been devastating. Same applies on institutional level as well, with institutions like museums or theaters not being able to operate on site activities for the public. What the long-term effects will be, that we are still evaluating. Maybe our travel will be less common, maybe there will be more restrictions and hesitation to travel.

That’s one thing I’m worried about; travel is such an important tool for learning from different cultures and learning about different ways of looking at things, expanding your worldview. In my view, travel gives so much more power to your expression, being exposed to different cultures and different viewpoints.

At the same time, there has been a surge of online activities that show the adaptiveness of the creative fields and will offer possibilities for the future as well. But I hope that once we are past COVID-19, the on-site gatherings will be as strong and important as they were before. People still need that physical experience and that physical meeting with artwork - you can’t have that kind of direct dialogue with an art piece through a screen – be it an event, music performance or piece of art.

In late 2020, the FCINY board and staff came together to really examine the Institute’s mission during a time of significant changes - a world confronting the realities of climate change, the global pandemic, rising wealth inequality, and racial justice protests in the United States. The result of the strategic planning was an expanded mission and vision statement, including a commitment to values of responsibility, equity, and openness.

What are your reflections on the strategic planning sessions and what do you feel that the expanded mission offers?

During the strategic planning, I felt it was very important that the planning was done by the staff at the Institute, because they are the ones who need to bring the strategic plan alive. The plan needs to echo their vision of how the institute can work and what are the important core activities and values behind that work.

When it comes to the expanded role of the Institute, I think that’s very important. Although residencies are important and they have a strong value, they are individually focused. I think that the Institute has an opportunity right now to reach a larger audience and tackle bigger questions, making a strong local impact in NYC.

I feel that the Institute is an intermediate between the Finnish arts scene and the creative scene in New York. The Institute can act as a window between the two different cultures. Our roles and possibilities in intermediating the scenes facilitates dialogue and creates common understanding. I think that’s hugely important for the future.

What are you most excited about in the upcoming years for the FCINY?

With the new strategic plan in place, what I’m looking forward to is the Institute opening its doors, looking at the different possibilities, and making a real impact.

The US election signals a change - a strong and important signal because that cultural exchange is the key for mutual understanding. How the Institute and other cultural organizations can facilitate that mutual understanding is important. In a sense, the doors have been reopened and it’s time to make that cultural dialogue possible again, and strengthen it.

The creative field is so important when we look at the future and the questions we hold as a society.

Through cultural and creative fields - design, architecture, and art - we can make sense of the world and we can build the world to be a better place for all of us.

And I think creating an understanding about those tools to build a better world - and the possibility that those tools offer us - is one role that I hope the Institute can play a part in.

What’s inspiring you right now?

What’s inspiring me is how adaptive we are as a human race and how we can overcome challenges, as COVID-19 has shown. In a sense, it has brought the world more together, and I hope we can keep that togetherness. It has shown that the resilience we have is very strong, that we can overcome the big challenges like climate change once we put our mind to it.

That’s what’s inspiring, that there is hope. We can overcome challenges and make this a better place.

The Design Museum in Helsinki is a national specialist museum of Finnish design. The museum researches, collects, stores and documents design, and displays it both in Finland and in touring exhibitions abroad. The Design Museum’s original collection dates back to 1873, when the first 700 objects were acquired from the Vienna World’s Fair to serve the needs of the Craft School of Helsinki, the predecessor of the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

For 2021 Design Museum has invited architect Florencia Colombo and industrial designer Ville Kokkonen to curate an exhibition on the 140-year history of Iittala. The exhibition builds on the museum’s comprehensive Iittala collection – over ten thousand objects, complemented by items on loan from private and public collections.

To read more about the museum and it’s programming, visit: designmuseum.fi

See all of our Board Members, and learn more about the FCINY here.

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