The Kosminen art space

was located on Eerikinkatu 15-17, 00100 Helsinki
and was open for just over three years, from February 2016 until March 2019

It came into being almost by accident – we signed the lease in late 2015, originally intending for it to be a shared work space. After moving in, we felt like we weren't utilising the whole potential of the tiny 20 square metre room (seeing as our work mostly took place by computers and could thus be done more or less anywhere). Since we felt there were too few opportunities for young/ emerging/ studying artists to show their work in Helsinki, we decided to turn our office into a half-time art space. Initially we invited friends and acquaintances to take over the two small walls of the space for some weeks at a time, but over the course of our years on Eerikinkatu we would gradually move away from viewing the place as our personal studio and instead started finding new artists to showcase via open calls. This was made possible due to a few smaller grants from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) and the Finnish Cultural Foundation (SKR) which helped us cover rent.

The Kosminen art space also served as a rent-free place to host cultural events, being especially popular as a venue for book launches and zine releases. As a result of this, the Eerikinkatu years were full of parties and new friendships being formed. 

Aside from hosting small exhibitions and a multitude of different events, the Eerikinkatu address was also home to a freely browsable books from the archives of Photobooks from Finland as well as to a bookshop run by Iina Esko of Khaos Publishing. The shop did not only consist of books published by Khaos, but also sold a variety of self-published print products from around the world, ranging from laser printed zines to hardcover books. Thanks to Iina, the Kosminen art space could offer our peers a place to distribute their publications.

After running the Eerikinkatu space for 2,5 years we applied for funding from the Kone Foundation for the express purpose of moving to a bigger place and opening a non-profit art gallery. In December 2018, we received a three year-project grant for this purpose. The Kosminen art space closed its doors two months later, and we relocated to Pursimiehenkatu 13 where we ran the Kosminen gallery until February 2022.