New honorary members for the School of Arts, Design and Architecture
13.01.2014
Each year people who have worked with special distinction on behalf of the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, and for the benefit of the fields of culture, industrial art and architecture, are invited as honorary members of the school.
Four new honorary members were named at the school's Anniversary Gala: Professor, Dean Fang Hai (Guangdong Technical University, China), Director Kari Korkman (Helsinki Design Week), Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen, and Perttu Rastas, special planner at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Alumna of the Year 2014 award was given to choreographer, artist Maija Hirvanen, who graduated from the Master's Degree Programme in Visual Culture at the Pori Unit of the Department of Art. Hirvanen's unconventional works transcend genre boundaries. In her works, she is interested in issues such as performances as a collective memory, the relationship between a performance and everyday media, and the mechanisms of relearning things. The School of Arts, Design, and Architecture's Alumnus of the Year award is an acknowledgement of pioneering or exceptional work in industrial design and architecture.
Also presented at the gala were the honours granted by the President of Finland on Independence Day 2013. Harald Arnkil was awarded the Knight of the Order of the Lion of Finland, Mari Tammisaari was awarded the First Class Medal of the Order of the White Rose of Finland, and Matti Kauppinen was awarded the First Class Medal of the Order of the White Rose of Finland. The student organisation TOKYO invited Dean Helena Hyvönen to the post of honorary member. At the end of the event, Artist-in-Residence Ariel Bustamante introduced himself. The Aalto University Artist-in-Residence programme is a two-year residence programme at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, directed at multidisciplinary artists.
The new professors’ opening lectures sparked interest
In keeping with the nature of arts universities, some of the professors at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture are fixed-term professors. In her opening speech, Dean Helena Hyvönen emphasised the issue of advancement on academic career paths with the help of artistic merit.
‘Recently it became possible to expand our professorate by inviting top experts in different areas of society, from artists to corporate executives, as part-time professors,’ Dean Helena Hyvönen said.
‘The professors at our school are quickly becoming an increasingly international group: at the beginning of this year the school has professors from 14 different countries.’
At the annual event, six new professors gave their opening lectures: Antti Ahlava (Emergent Design Methodologies), Pirjo Sanaksenaho (Building Design) Iiro Küttner (Film and Television Scriptwriting), Anne Stenros (Design Leadership), Pia Lindman, (Environmental Art) and Kevin Tavin (International Art Education).