Ville Lähde and Heidi Hautala visit The Forest

In collaboration with Radio Helsinki, we have produced a series of three interviews that give listeners an insight into the background to and experiences of IHME Helsinki Commission 2025. Laura Friman interviewed the artist behind The Forest, Zhanna Kadyrova, IHME Helsinki’s Executive Director and Curator Paula Toppila, Environmental Researcher Ville Lähde from the BIOS Research Unit, and Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Expert Heidi Hautala.

The joint interview with Kadyrova and Toppila provided background information on the creation of the work and its siting in the Power Plant Museum on Helsinki’s Vanhankaupunginkoski Rapids. The project took two years to complete – the longest creative process in Kadyrova’s career. It also enabled her to create this completely new site-specific work.

Kadyrova became interested in waterways when she first visited Helsinki in spring 2024 and noticed that water surrounds Helsinki everywhere. Before settling on the final idea for the work, many other ideas were considered, which you can hear more about in Friman’s interview.

Ville Lähde: Fluctuations inside your own head

Environmental researcher Ville Lähde visited The Forest and was a guest on Laura Friman’s programme on September 4, 2025. Lähde was struck by the work’s powerful emphasis on technological progress and the dams that represent it. In the interview, he says:

This is a sad but excellent choice of subject, because it reveals how modern progress has been based on the illusion of control, that it is possible to build a large dam, a large reservoir, large power plants, and to completely control the surrounding environment, and then, when it all falls apart, we can see the consequences.

In his experience, the combination of two places and situations of very different sizes creates a tension in the work that can cause fluctuations in your own mind.

Heidi Hautala: The Forest shows the scale of destruction

Heidi Hautala visited the exhibition with her dog Onni and appeared on Laura Friman’s programme on September 18, 2025. She is a member of the high-level working group appointed by Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate the environmental impact of the war. The interview focuses heavily on these impacts and on what the artwork reveals about them.

The blowing up of the Kakhovka Dam could be a significant precedent when these environmental damages and war crimes are eventually dealt with in international courts, and perhaps Ukrainian courts.

Committing environmental crimes can also be a war strategy. Hautala felt that the work gives a good picture of the scale of such destruction and of how dramatic the consequences of water depletion have been.

Zhanna Kadyrova’s IHME Helsinki Commission 2025 is on display at the Power Plant Museum until October 2.

Open:

Tuesday–Friday 15:00–20:00

Saturday–Sunday 12:00–17:00

Free admission!

Power Plant Museum, Hämeentie 163, Helsinki.