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Hans Rosenström takes part in the third edition of the Helsinki Biennial, opening on June 8 in various locations in Helsinki, including Helsinki Art Museum HAM, Vallisaari Island and Esplanadi Park. Helsinki Biennial 2025 runs through September 21, 2025

Helsinki Biennial 2025 is a contemporary art event showcasing 37 artists or collectives from Finland and around the world. This year's Helsinki Biennial has be curated by HAM’s Head of Exhibitions Kati Kivinen, and curator Blanca de la Torre.


The departure point for Hans Rosenström's artwork "Tidal Tears" on Vallisaari Island is the slowly changing environment of the site. Reduced human activity and the deterioration of built infrastructure has allowed other forms of life to thrive on the island. This interplay of decomposition and rebirth is a pattern that recurs within other biological systems, such as forests and even our own respiration. The elements in the installation – floating sound, pooling water, the stillness of petrified wood, and the brief presence of the visitor – bring together contrasting temporalities in the continuous cycles of nature.

Sound waves are energy experienced only during the fleeting moment of hearing, whereas the petrified elements epitomize extremely slow processes of change. Water, an even older substance, is a unifying force for all living beings; through a shared experience of thirst and processes of circulation, water connects bodies across vast distances and stretches of time.

As visitors walk along the path, their presence activates a voiced soundscape that mimics the natural sounds of the site – both those audible to the human ear and those beyond its reach, like the minuscule life in the soil. The sounds move in breath-like waves reflecting the processes of growth and decay, rising from low underground frequencies to the treetops and returning down to the earth. The non-human sounds, interpreted by human voices, connect listeners to their own corporeality, enfolding them in the experience as a part of the artwork.

The Tiftö Foundation enables Hans Rosenström’s new work.

Read more about the artwork and Helsinki Biennial 2025 here



Hans Rosenström: "Tidal Tears" (2025), sound and sculpture installation: sound, petrified wood, water, 9:30 min. Team: Echo Vocal Ensemble, singing; Guillaume Soula, field recordings / sound design; Maria Bengtsson, assistant. Thanks: JJ Lems / Xyleia, Laurence Hussey / Studio 7, EMS elektronmusikstudion, Sasu Rissanen / GoljaT, Julia Giertz, Sophia Brous, Sami Suihkonen, Sampo Wiik, Alina Girshovich. The Tiftö Foundation enables Hans Rosenström’s new work. Commissioned by: HAM / Helsinki Biennial.

Photo: HAM / Helsinki Biennial / Sonja Hyytiäinen.