Welcome to the exhibition opening on Thursday 28 March from 5–7pm! The artist will be present at the gallery also on Sunday 7 April from 2–4 pm.

The installation in this exhibition reimagines an existing attic. Its pitched roof slopes down from the ridge, a lid sealing off the incoming daylight. Two windows are framing the stale air. This is a place where cats were born, and a dog went to die. A pile of books is laying on the steps, waiting to be taken up to the attic. Once they have found their place on the shelves, they are unlikely to leave. Sitting there quietly, they are starting to grow on you. Like another pair of eyes, like your heart in the right place, like a thick skin.

The exhibition follows withdrawing health. Health that has faded, but isn’t yet understood as illness, either in your mind or in your records. Health that you still hope for; hoping to be recovered, and to be found again, in the things you do, the things that you surround yourself with. 

In Growing Pains I want to unlearn what I have come to understand about growth, be it growing up, growing personally or growing economically, and invite a more cyclical understanding of these processes which includes the baseline that we are vulnerable beings, prone to be sick. 

Lukas Malte Hoffmann is a Helsinki-based artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. He completed his BfA at Kuvataideakatemia, Helsinki, and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, and his MfA at the Dutch Art Institute, Arnhem. His work on this exhibition has been supported by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) and the Konstsamfundet.

Scoby and drink sponsorship by The Good Guys Kombucha.

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the support and care of Koynē, Mari Koppanen, Nokkos, Bärbel and Ulrich Hoffmann, Markus Åhström, Jessie Bullivant, Kristina Palmgren, Mica Ström, Benjamin Forster, Maija Fox, Tatu Laurila, Solomon Embafrash, Pasi Pakula, Ethan Hayes-Chute, Ilya, Sakari Tervo, Kader Dera, Elisabeth and Mikael Helenelund, Corinna and Miki.