The ONBOARDS Biennale 2025 is open in Antwerp until July 28th. I am happy to be one of the invited artists and present my work A Split Second.

The artwork was created with valuable assistance from Museum Plantin-Moretus
(Print Room collection), Antwerp – UNESCO World Heritage

ONBOARDS offers a unique exhibition platform by transforming 100 billboards throughout Antwerp (Belgium) into sites for public artistic engagement. Through this accessible and unconventional format, they aim to create a dynamic dialogue between contemporary art and the urban public, reaching diverse audiences beyond the walls of traditional institutions.

Tatu Tuominen’s A Split Second reflects on the construction and preservation of cultural memory. The images in the artwork are appropriated from a series of drawings attributed to the workshop of Antwerp neoclassicist artist Andries Lens who lived from 1739 to 1822 and taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

A group of these drawings exists only as fragments — their lower halves lost, the upper portions preserved as though spared by an act of mercy. The result is uncanny: Why were the drawings torn? Why were only the upper parts saved?

Two of the drawings take center stage, forming a sequence. The figures — a putto and a classical god referencing antiquity — are caught in a dialogue of gestures. The artwork is a two-frame moving image, in which centuries collapse into a single, disjointed instant between the two images. Now transplanted into the present, they linger ghostlike in the cityscape of Antwerp in 2025.

The drawings are a recent acquisition to the historically significant Print Room collection of Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp — a UNESCO World Heritage site that works daily to preserve and extend the afterlife of art. This artwork was created with valuable assistance from the museum.

(Scroll down for English)

Lahden Jaksonkadun uuden asuinkorttelin julkisivuissa häilyy kauan sitten kadonnut asemarakennus. Kuvataiteilija Tatu Tuominen tutki Lahden historiaa ja innostui rautateiden merkityksestä kaupungin synnylle. Taideteoksen kautta paikan menneisyys on nyt osa asukkaiden elämää. 

Vanha puinen Lahden rautatieasema häilyy graafisina kuvioina Lahden Matkakeskuksen viereisen asuinkorttelin neljän kerrostalon julkisivuissa. Kuvataiteilija Tatu Tuomisen teos Ratavarren aarre on kunnianosoitus rautateiden pitkälle historialle. Teos sijoittuu Lahden Asunnot Oy:n ja TA-Asumisoikeus Oy:n rakennuttamaan uudiskohteeseen osoitteessa Jaksonkatu 1–9. 

“Toiveenani oli, että teos voisi syventää Jaksonkadun uusien asukkaiden suhdetta asuinpaikkaansa”, kertoo Tatu Tuominen ajatuksestaan teoksen taustalla. 

Ratavarren aarre -teoksen innoittajana on Suomen rautateiden historia ja niiden merkitys kyseiselle paikalle. Rautatien ansiosta Lahdesta kehittyi aikoinaan kaupunki. Kun rautatiet tulivat 1800-luvun loppupuolella Suomeen, raiteita pitkin ei kulkenut vain ihmisiä ja tavaroita, vaan ne olivat tiedon ja kulttuurivaihdon valtateitä. 

Teosta suunnitellessaan Tuominen tutustui Suomen Rautatiemuseon arkistoihin, jonka kokoelmista löytynyt akvarellein väritetty rakennuspiirustus Lahden järjestyksessään toisesta rautatieasemasta on toiminut teoksen lähtökohtana. Vuonna 1878 rakennetun rautatieaseman suunnitteli arkkitehti Knut Nylander. Kaunis asemarakennus oli puuta ja keisarillisen tyylin mukaan keltainen. Valmistuttuaan se oli paikkakunnan tärkeimpiä kulttuuritiloja. Rakennus purettiin vuonna 1935 nykyisen asemarakennuksen tieltä. 

Vanhasta rakennuspiirustuksesta Tuominen poimi teokseen kuvafragmentteja, jotka uurrettiin fotomekaanisin keinoin betonielementtien pintaan. Viisiosainen teos sijoittuu eri puolille asuinkorttelin julkisivua. Kuvat ovat samassa mittakaavassa kuin alkuperäinen asemarakennus. 

Heijastukset jo kadonneesta rautatieasemasta, joka aikoinaan sijaitsi Jaksonkadun asuinkorttelin lähellä, häilyvät rakennuksen pinnoilla. Teoksen myötä kaupungin menneisyys ja nykyhetki asettuvat limittäin tässä korttelissa, kertoo Tuominen teoksestaan. 

Teos toteutettiin tilaustyönä Lahden Asunnot Oy:lle ja TA-Asumisoikeus Oy:lle. Teoksen taidekoordinoinnista ja tuotannosta vastasi Upeart. 

---

The facades of the new residential block on Lahti’s Jaksonkatu feature images of a long-lost station building. Visual artist Tatu Tuominen researched the history of Lahti and was impressed about the significance railways had for the birth of the city. The artwork in place, the history of the site is now part of the residents’ lives.

The old wooden railway station of Lahti is seen as graphic images on the facades of the four apartment buildings in the residential block next to Lahti Travel Centre. Visual artist Tatu Tuominen’s work Trackside Treasure is a tribute to the long history of the railways. The work is located in a residential block built by Lahden Asunnot Oy and TA-Asumisoikeus Oy at Jaksonkatu 1–9.

“My aim was that the artwork could deepen the relationship of the people living in Jaksonkatu to their place of residence,” says Tatu Tuominen about the idea behind the work.

The inspiration for the work Trackside Treasure is the Finnish railway history and its importance to the place in question. Lahti developed into a city because of the railway. When the first railways were built in Finland at the end of the 19th century, not only people and goods traveled along the tracks, but they were highways of information and cultural exchange.

When planning the piece, Tuominen went through the archives of the Finnish Railway Museum, and found a beautiful watercolored plan of the now lost railway station of Lahti. This picture served as the source image of the work. Built in 1878, the railway station was designed by architect Knut Nylander. The station building was made of wood and painted yellow according to the prevailing imperial style. After completion, it was one of the most important cultural spaces in the vicinity. The building was demolished in 1935 to make way for the current station building.

Tuominen sampled fragments from the old plan which were etched into the surface of the concrete elements by photomechanical means. The five-part work is located on different sides of the facade of the residential block. The pictures are on the same scale as the original station building.

“Reflections from disappeared train station, which was once located near the Jaksonkatu residential block, can be seen on the surfaces of the building. By looking at the artwork, the city’s past and present are superimposed in this building,” says Tuominen about his work.

The work was commissioned for Lahden Asunnot Oy and TA-Asumisoikeus Oy. Upeart was responsible for the art coordination and production.

Tatu Tuominen’s Fairy Tale Palaces takes over daycare centre floors in Maunula

A new piece of public art commissioned according to the percentage financing principle has been completed in Helsinki: visual artist Tatu Tuominen’s (born 1975) six-part Fairy Tale Palaces stretches across the floors of a daycare centre in Maunula. Located on three different floors of the building, the parts making up the work consist of floor paintings, ceramic tiles and solid wood parquet flooring. The facilities housing the work are used by Finnish-language Daycare Centre Korento and Swedish-language Daycare Centre Humlan. The daycare centre building was designed by AFKS / Architects Frondelius + Keppo + Salmenperä.

The patterns used in the different parts of the work borrow parts of floor decorations and ornaments found in historical buildings. Although the scale, materials and colours used differ from the original floors, the patterns have been created in a way that makes it possible to identify the references. The exceptional floor patterns imbue the daycare centre with some of the grandeur of a mosque courtyard, cathedral and imperial palace, for example. The work is based on the idea that there is something special in the design language of the historical patterns used in architecture and art: if not sacred, then at least noble and beautiful. 

Tuominen’s intention is to cause a disturbance in the chronological time continuum and the hierarchies of power by transplanting impressive, artistically notable floor patterns from the past and different parts of the world to the everyday of this daycare centre in Helsinki.

“The idea of Fairy Tale Palaces is to communicate that equal and high-quality early childhood education for all children is important – a daycare centre is to Helsinki what Saint Mark’s Basilica was to the Republic of Venice,” says visual artist Tatu Tuominen about the idea behind the work.

The City of Helsinki adheres to the percentage financing principle, which means that approximately one per cent of the City’s new construction and renovation expenses are dedicated to the creation of new public art. In recent years, extensive construction efforts have made it possible to commission art for many public buildings in Jätkäsaari, Vallila, Kalasatama and Yliskylä, for example. HAM Helsinki Art Museum serves as an arts expert in these projects, and the works are added to HAM’s art collection.

 

Tatu Tuominen invited in Aalto University’s School of Business building staircase art competition

New artwork will be located in the newest building on campus.

The invited art competition seeks to find exceptional and feasible proposals for artworks to be
situated in three staircase spaces at the School of Business building in Otaniemi, Espoo. Five artists and artist groups were invited to take part in the competition: IC 98, Pekka Paikkari, Riikka Puranen, Praneet Soi and Tatu Tuominen.

‘Art is an intrinsic part of our built environment at Aalto University. We encounter and experience art in diverse locations including indoor and outdoor public spaces, but also in more private spaces such as offices and meeting rooms,’ sanoo Anna Valtonen, Aalto University’s Vice President for Arts of Creative Practices.

Successful proposals will follow the art concept of the School of Business and the vision of public art at Aalto University. The competitors may suggest art works to either one or three staircases. Deadline for proposals is 30 April 2019 and the results of the competition will be published in May 2019.

Read More