Science, technology, art and business collide during the annual Aalto Festival

Each May students and academics of Aalto University display all the projects they have been working on throughout the year. These manifest in different ways; some are lectures, others are exhibitions, but they all are imbued with the spirit and celebration of spring.

‘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 the flowers,’ says Vice President of Art and Creative Practices Anna Valtonen.

This year’s festival activities expand on last year’s successes with the annual fashion show extending to a full week of fashion forward activity with a Fashion Seminar taking place on 28 May and Näytös19 at the Helsinki Cable Factory on 29 May.

Last year’s Sustainability Day will now also broaden in scope and ambition to become Sustainability Science Days (9-10 May), in partnership with the University of Helsinki. During the two-day event, UN Sustainable Development Goals will be approached via researcher-meets-practice dialogues and popular discussion events.

By the end of May, well over 60 total events will have happened. In addition to the aforementioned, we will have the Product Design Gala on 17 May, an exhibition of student teams presenting their accomplishments and prototypes, and the campus and its ecosystem of creative fields-focused Hook '19 on 8 May. 

‘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.’ Anna Valtonen notes.

Aalto Festival is 8–31.5.2019. The full run of show can be found online with many more locations and details at aalto.fi/aaltofestival

More information:

• [email protected] 
• aalto.fi/aaltofestival