EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art inaugurates its 20th anniversary year with the group exhibition In Search of the Present: On Rootlessness. This third exhibition in the series, opening on 14 March, delves into how art helps us find our place in a constantly changing world. Some of the works in the exhibition have been selected from Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection.
Danh Võ, We the People (detail), 2011–2016. Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art © Paula Virta / EMMA
The works in this third edition of the In Search of the Present series explore the phenomena and questions of our time. Celebrating EMMA’s 20th anniversary, the exhibition brings together significant artists of our era and encourages visitors to be present both in time and place. Spatial and multisensory installations transform EMMA into a space that provides a setting for quiet contemplation and for examining themes of belonging and rootlessness.
The exhibition features works by the following artists:
Marina Abramović, Haruka Kashima, Kimsooja, Tarik Kiswanson, Germaine Kruip, Ken Matsubara, Lydia Ourahmane, Helen Pashgian, Jani-Matti Salo, Danh Võ, WAUHAUS x TTK (Nurture), Ian Wilson, and Maaria Wirkkala.
Some of the works have been newly commissioned for the exhibition, while others have been selected from Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection. The Foundation’s Art Collection was deposited into the collections of EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art as a permanent loan when the museum was founded in 2006. Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection comprises nearly 3,000 works of Finnish and international art. Works belonging to the collection can be explored here.
The In Search of the Present: On Rootlessness exhibition is open from 14 March 2026 to 7 February 2027. Previous exhibitions in the series were presented at EMMA in 2016 and 2022.
