Partner Museum Programme for Visual Arts
Through the Partner Museum Programme, Finnish contemporary art museums are invited to realise the projects of their dreams. The program accepts applications every two years – the most recent application round was in spring 2025.
The Partner Museum Programme is a form of support for visual arts initiated by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation in 2017. Its aim is to revitalise visual arts activity across Finland by offering museums the chance to pursue new experiments beyond the limits of their regular budgets.
From 2017 to 2021, the programme operated on an invitation basis, but since 2023, museums have been able to directly apply for funding. You can explore the projects funded through the programme further down on this page.
With support from the Partner Museum Programme, Sinkka Museum in Kerava explored the intersection of art and magic.
Pictured: Disappearing Objects by Louis De Belle.
Who is it for?
Art museums can apply for funding through the programme for a variety of contemporary art projects. The support is intended primarily for small and medium-sized museums, and funding can also be sought for joint initiatives between multiple institutions. Museums may apply for support for entirely new projects or to further develop an existing concept.
Projects may focus, for example, on collaboration between artists and the museum, new forms of audience engagement, innovative exhibition concepts, or events.
In 2023, Imatra Art Museum and the Lönnström Art Museum in Rauma were selected as new partner museums. Each was awarded €100,000 in funding for exhibition and audience engagement projects to be carried out during 2024–2025.
With the funding, Imatra Art Museum produced an exhibition inspired by the city’s history of wood processing. The project aims to bring international contemporary art to Imatra and to offer local schoolchildren workshop opportunities under the guidance of professional artists.
Lönnström Art Museum uses the funding to continue and further develop its audience outreach work within the framework of the Lönnström Projects, focusing especially on groups that don’t typically visit art exhibitions—such as children and the elderly.
The third round of the Partner Museum Programme included Art and Museum Centre Sinkka in Kerava, which received €100,000 in funding, and Poikilo Museums in Kouvola, whose project was awarded €75,000.
Sinkka realised the exhibition Taikaa! (“Magic!”) in 2023–2024, exploring the intersections between visual art and magic. The featured artists were professionals from both the art and magic worlds, presenting mechanical illusion machines, magically animated houseplants, ghosts searching for a way out, and an endless mirror maze. A rich programme of live performances accompanied the exhibition, reinterpreting traditional magic tricks from new artistic perspectives.
Poikilo Museums used the funding to develop a programme centred on game art. This included a 2022 lecture series and professional workshops exploring the potential of game-based approaches in artistic practice. In 2023, the project continued with an art competition focused on game art.
The second round of the Partner Museum Programme selected the Lappeenranta Art Museum and the Aine Art Museum in Tornio as its partner institutions. Each museum received €75,000 to realise their project.
The Lappeenranta Art Museum organised a week-long video art festival in the city’s historic fortress area in autumn 2021. Video and media art were chosen as the focus of the festival because this genre had not previously been presented on such a broad scale in South Karelia.
The Aine Art Museum carried out its Lapin kullanmurut (“Lapland’s Darlings”) project between 2020 and 2021. It brought young visual artists from Lapland into the museum’s orbit, taking turns living and working at the Viippola residency in Tornio. During their residencies, they became familiar with museum work and were offered opportunities to exhibit their art in unconventional spaces throughout the city.
The pilot phase of the Partner Museum Programme for visual arts saw Rauma Art Museum and Joensuu Art Museum ONNI as the first participating museums. Rauma Art Museum received €50,000 to organise the Rauma Triennale, while Joensuu Art Museum ONNI was granted €100,000 for the Näky&Täky project.
The first part of the Näky&Täky project took place in November 2018, when the Näky video mapping artwork was projected onto the museum building’s façade. In the second part, Täky, the museum unveiled Onni, a work by Joensuu visual artist Tarja Malinen. This interactive sculpture, incorporating digital elements, was especially aimed at children and young people, offering new ways to experience and engage with art.
Rauma Art Museum’s contemporary art event, the Rauma Triennale, invited audiences to explore the theme of boredom in September 2019. The event featured an international contemporary art exhibition, a radio play created by a local school group, and a publication that included a new Finnish translation of Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky’s essay In Praise of Boredom.