Jonna Suurhasko – Dribble of Being

Jyväskylä based vegetation and installation artist Jonna Suurhasko’s new exhibition Dribble of Being uses running water as its main element. It is a meditative body of work in the Jyväskylä art museum’s gallery.

The central element of Suurhasko’s work is live vegetation, around which she constructs an installation-like artwork. Plants live and grow in the artist’s exhibitions by means of artificial light, irrigation and air conditioning.

”In contrast to traditional art materials, water and plants are not only material for an artwork, they also play an active role in a dynamically changing environment. A plant artwork is, therefore, never complete but lives in a delicate, evolving system which needs maintenance, upkeep both in the studio and in the exhibition space.”

Suurhasko’s work deals with sustaining systems of life found in nature. The artist is interested in the intersection between natural and artificial.

”What is interesting about it, is the amount of research, technical proficiency and time required to create natural conditions. Nature’s complexity only becomes apparent when you try to reproduce it outside of its natural habitat.”

Dribble of Being invites the viewer to pause and see nature in a new light — not as something distant or separate, but as a living force that constantly surrounds us. It is a reminder of nature’s power, but also its fragility. Nature is not found only in forests and riverbeds, but also in small, often overlooked details — a blade of grass pushing through asphalt, or moss growing in a rain gutter.

Jonna Suurhasko
Jonna Suurhasko Jonna Suurhasko (b. 1980, Pieksämäki) graduated from art school in 2003. Suurhasko has worked as a professional artist for almost 20 years, the last 10 of which have focused on installation, environmental and spatial art forms. Based in Jyväskylä, the artist’s work has also been shown at the Mänttä Art Festival in 2021 and the Onoma summer exhibition in Fiskars 2023, among others.

The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland and the Finnish Heritage Agency.