A Playful Approach
May 19 – June 9, 2021
Featuring work by Petra Aaltola, Linn Byrkjeland, Noora Karila, Leena Keränen, Valtteri Kivelä, Muriel Kuoppala, Eeva Lietonen, and Mika Palonen.
Marcy has always been about creating experiences that invite people to feel.
To slow down.
To connect: with art, with one another, and with themselves.
With A Playful Approach, I wanted to celebrate something that often disappears as we grow older.
Play.
Not as the opposite of seriousness, but as one of the deepest expressions of creative freedom.
Art is a serious practice.
But I don't believe it should take itself too seriously.
Without room for play, exploration, strangeness, and surprise, even the most beautiful work can become repetitive, predictable, and lifeless.
Every meaningful creation asks us to step into unfamiliar territory.
To experiment.
To risk not knowing.
To make something before we fully understand what it is becoming.
That can feel uncomfortable.
Sometimes even a little strange.
Especially when we are creating something that doesn't yet have a familiar language.
But that is precisely where new possibilities begin.
When we resist the urge to immediately explain or rationalise what we are experiencing, we leave space for something unexpected to emerge: a new connection, a new awareness, a different perspective…
An idea that could never have appeared if we had insisted on certainty from the very beginning.
A Playful Approach wasn't only about playfulness; it was about trusting curiosity enough to let it lead.
The Artists
Petra Aaltola
Linn Byrkjeland
Noora Karila
Leena Keränen
Valtteri Kivelä
Muriel Kuoppala
Eeva Lietonen
Mika Palonen.
Looking Back
At the time, I thought I was exploring playfulness.
Today, I recognise something even more subtle and true.
Play is one of the ways we loosen our grip on certainty.
It allows us to experiment without immediately needing to arrive.
To stay with a question.
To make unexpected connections.
To discover rather than control.
A Playful Approach taught me something I continue returning to today.
Meaningful creation rarely begins with full certainty.
It begins with enough freedom to play.
The Exhibitions
An exploration of art, belonging, emotional landscapes, and the many ways art can bring people together.
Hetki
2018
An invitation to feel belonging through art.
Sensual Closeness
2019
Exploring presence through the senses
Ripples
2019
An inquiry around how experiences continue living within us.
Unraveling
2020
An exploration of transformation through letting go.
Reframing
2020
An invitation to see with new eyes by reconnecting with intuition, presence, and the landscape within.
A Playful Approach
2021
Examining playfulness as a path towards discovery, freedom, and new ways of seeing.
Reflections
2021
A reflection on: not everything meaningful needs to be interpreted before it can be felt.
Together
2022
An invitation to trust that meaningful creation grows through relationships, generosity, and shared ways of seeing.
Enigmatic
2022
An invitation to trust intuition not as certainty: as a way of listening before something has language.
Caldera
2022
The inexplicable, cloud-like force of creation .
Bridges
2023
What if the things we create are creating us in return?
What it Means To Be Human
2025
What if our greatest creations are the ones that remind us what it means to be human?