Aalto Festival explores science, technology, art and business

Each year as the weather starts to turn and the sun returns to Finland, the students, faculty and researchers of Aalto University put their hard work on display.  These lectures, seminars, exhibitions and parties are part of a celebration of many months of effort.  Says Vice President of Art & Creative Practices, Anna Valtonen, ‘It is my favorite time of year. Everyone at the university has been doing such a wide variety of good stuff, and it is wonderful to see it pop-up with spring.’

This year the ever-changing festival will try its hand at some new programming too, including a first ever “research brought to life” Friday Night Live (18 May) event with a live VJ, a band and researchers exploring how the theme of sisu impacts their work. Another new event is entitled What If… (19 May) and is part of the newly launched Aalto University Junior initiative. The event will offer free arts and science programmes for kids with 10 workshops around the theme of light and colours.

By the end of May well over 60 total events will happen including the Product Design Gala (18 May), an exhibition of student teams presenting their accomplishments and prototypes. Aalto Sustainability Day (18 May) is an event discussing sustainability challenges with novel approaches. The winner of the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize will give a public talk at Aalto, Millennium Talk (23 May). Näytös18 fashion show is one of the most anticipated fashion events in Finland (25 May). The Hook ’18 focuses on campus and city-planning (30 May). The full run of show can be found online and in our app with more locations and details.  

Valtonen notes, ‘It is hard to capture or contain all the great work being done at our university, we’d have to run the festival year-round to really showcase everything.  But as a snapshot for one month a year, we hope the community can really see our best and brightest on display.’

Aalto Festival runs 17.–31.5.2018. Learn more online aaltofestival.fi or download the app at Google Play or via the AppStore.

More information:
aaltofestival.fi
[email protected]