KIM SIMONSSON: Moss giants and Waking dreams and other stories

Söderlångvik Manor’s 2025 art exhibition invites visitors into the imaginative world of the sculptor Kim Simonsson. Both in the forest where the moss giants have taken root and throughout the museum, park and restaurant where nearly thirty sculptures are waiting to be discovered.

Preparations for the exhibition began two years ago, when a suitable forest was sought for the four giant moss children to settle in after being displayed in the city centre of Lille in France during its art festival in 2022. After spending a summer in Helsinki’s Glass Palace Square, they have finally returned to their natural habitat, where they remain and, in time, become covered with real moss. Overjoyed to see the forest again, they sing their song four times a day: at sunrise, noon, 3 p.m. and sunset. The wondrously peculiar music is composed by Perttu Haapanen.

As you enter the museum, you are greeted by a pitch-black slumbering giant named Waking Dream, seated atop an old Gothic table. She sets the tone for how effortlessly the many sculptures have found their place in the manor’s various halls and rooms. The artist has created small stories for every piece, where a child’s gaze, imagination and our relationship with nature are often the key themes.

Children and animals have long been central to Kim Simonsson’s work, and this exhibition is no exception. Most of the sculptures depicts children exploring the manor on their own terms: some cutting their hair, some finding hideaways beneath a pool table or in a nest made of cabbage leaves, while others have settled onto a bed or perched themselves on a mantelpiece.

Many of them seem tailor-made for the atmosphere at Söderlångvik Museum, with gilded and bronze-like surfaces or aesthetics inspired by ancient Rome. Others stand out as striking, bright green contrasts or shift the mood of the rooms around them. The dining room takes on a slightly ominous feel with the matte black silhouette-like sculptures lined up on its long table, and the four children in the chauffeur’s room create a rather eerie presence with their pitch-black stares.

You are warmly invited into Kim Simonsson’s curious and dreamlike world at Söderlångvik Manor! The exhibition is open daily from May 2nd to September 30th and from Wednesday to Sunday during Lux Söderlångvik.