The 2027 Residencies for the Saari Residence Announced

The recipients of Kone Foundation’s Saari residencies for 2027 have been announced. A record number of applications were submitted for the residency, but the number of available spots was reduced due to ongoing major renovations in one of the residential buildings.

For 2027, Kone Foundation’s Board of Trustees granted residencies for Saari Residence to 15 individual artists, four working pairs and five artistic working groups. Next year, in addition to artists based in Finland and Europe, the residency will host guests from countries including Argentina, Colombia, China, India and Turkey.

Places were available for both individual and group residencies. The individual residencies include a two-month working period at the Saari Residence, a monthly grant and accommodation. The group residency includes a 2–4-week residency work period, as well as a personal grant, a workspace and accommodation. In addition, artists coming to the residency from outside Finland may apply for funding for ecological travel, and those traveling from the Global South may also apply for funding to cover other travel expenses. Both types of travel assistance have grown in popularity year after year.

“Many of this year’s submitted applications highlighted themes related to the mind, the subconscious and the supernatural, as well as the physical as a channel for generating knowledge. The applications also highlighted the examination of relationships between humans, artificial intelligence and non-human actors. In addition, several work plans explored the significance of rituals in our time. These themes signalled a strong need to seek new ways of understanding humanity, connection and reality in an ever-changing world,” says Leena Kela, Residency Director at the Saari Residence.

Ongoing Renovation Reduces the Number of Residency Spots Available

A record 1,635 applications from 107 different countries were submitted during the open call for the year 2027. A total of 1,539 individual artists or artist pairs applied for individual residencies, and 96 artistic working groups applied for group residencies.

Due to the high number of applications and the ongoing renovations, the award rate for residency spots in 2027 is approximately 1.5 percent. The separate workspaces in the residence’s old stone barn and one of the residential buildings will be renovated throughout 2027, and the artists will work from their apartments and in the manor’s surroundings. The working groups staying at the residence during the summer will also have access to the manor’s outbuildings and the surrounding area.

Approximately half of the artists selected for the residency are based in Finland or are Finnish nationals, and the other half will be arriving from outside Finland.

A Diverse Pool of Applicants With a Western Focus

Most of the applicants represent visual arts, followed by literature. Performing arts, music, film, and media and sound art were distributed more evenly. The distribution reflects the limited availability of workspaces: the number of applicants in the performing arts remained small due to renovations, whereas literary work was emphasised in the applicants’ work plans.

Western applicants again accounted for the majority of applications this year. The largest number of applications came from Finland, Germany, the United States and Turkey, and the United Kingdom and India were also well represented. New additions to the list included Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Yemen, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Moldova, Paraguay and Saint Lucia. Over the past seven years applications for the residency have been submitted from a total of 125 different countries.

More than half of the applicants were women, just over a third were men and 4% were non-binary.  Three percent of applicants did not wish to answer the question about their gender. Nearly half of the applicants were between the ages of 36 and 50, and the second-largest group consisted of those aged 27 to 35.

Themes Ranging From Artificial Intelligence to Textile Design

Residency applications are evaluated each year by a rotating panel of peer reviewers, who once again highlighted the high artistic quality of the applications.

Themes related to artificial intelligence, sexual minorities and war were recurring in the applications. Many artists view artificial intelligence as a fascinating research subject and reflect on how it is shaping our reality. On the other hand,  applications also explored concrete and sensory themes, such as landscape, weather, nature and the environment through activities like walking. In addition, the submitted applications regarded themes of identity, memory, heritage and history, as well as the supernatural and magical. Soft values, handicrafts, textile arts, personal journals and cartography also emerged.

The peer reviewers also noted the use of artificial intelligence in the applications. Machine-generated text often came across as bulky, and one evaluator described it as a smooth, polished brick that’s hard to get a grip on.

Three evaluators from this application round discussed the review process in the article series “An Anonymous evaluator”. Among other things, they discuss what it is like to evaluate applications, and they also offer tips to applicants, provide insights on what to keep in mind when using artificial intelligence and explain how positive discrimination affects the evaluation process.

Read more about what the evaluators had to say

Maps, Construction and the Afterlife at the Saari Residence in 2027

In 2027, the Saari Residence will host, among others, the poet Xiao Yue Shan (Canada), the working pair Juho Keränen and Julius Susimäki (Finland) and the working group Jenni Kivelä & Kiltit ihmiset (Finland).

Xiao Yue Shan Will Explore the Local Language Through Maps and Poetry

Xiao Yue Shan is a poet, writer, editor and translator who was born in China and lives on Vancouver Island in Canada.

“At the Saari Residence, I will be working on a screenplay called Necessary Clarity of the Overflow: A Cartography of the Present, which will consist of lyrical essays. “The work explores how applying ancient cartographic methods and practices can rekindle a sense of curiosity, reciprocity and openness in our relationship with place and navigation,” Shan explains.

Shan works primarily with poetry, and aims to take language beyond mere presentation and make the experience of it a way of life. She is interested in how technological guidance and predetermined paths interfere with our natural instinct to explore our surroundings creatively, and she reflects on how literature can resist one-dimensionality and the loss of detail.

Her work then telling be the antidote (2024) won the Tupelo Press Berkshire Prize. How Often I Have Chosen Love (2019) won the Frontier Poetry Chapbook Prize. She is one of the editors and translators of the anthology Ten Thousand Miles of Clouds and Moons: New Chinese Writing (2025). shellyshan.com

The Setting for Juho Keränen and Julius Susimäki’s Performance is a Construction Site

Juho Keränen and Julius Susimäki will begin their residency at the Saari Residence by actually constructing their BUILDING project. The setting for their performance is a construction site, which serves both as a physical location for building and as a metaphor for a mental process.

“Building work isn’t necessarily aimed at a finished result; rather, it can be a continuous, aimless and repetitive activity that brings pleasure – or pain – for its own sake,” the work partners describe.

Keränen and Susimäki will arrive at the residence with lumber, screws and construction tools in tow. The working pair will be labouring on small-scale construction projects in the manor’s outdoor areas, and will be welcoming outside observations and interdisciplinary discussions to generate new perspectives.

Juho Keränen is a dramaturg, performer, actor, playwright, screenwriter and musician who is currently interested in play and playfulness, experimental physical theatre, romanticism and exploring the boundaries of the stage. In addition to theatre, Keränen plays music in a band called Suisto.

Julius Susimäki is a Helsinki-based actor and dancer who holds a Master of Arts (Theatre and Drama) degree from the Theatre Academy of Uniarts Helsinki. Since 2010, he has worked on numerous theatre, TV and film productions and has also directed, acted in, written, designed and produced his own theatre and film projects. His art is characterised by strong visual thinking, physical expression and an interest in the dialogue between different art forms.

Kind People Explore Death and the Afterlife Through Performance

Jenni Kivelä & Kiltit ihmiset (kind people) create text-based, site-specific performances centered on creating a powerful viewer experience.

Dramaturg Eira Virekoski, performer Elina Kivioja, sound designer and composer Joonas Outakoski and curator, choreographer Jenni Kivelä will continue working on the third part of their performance series at the Saari Residence. The performance is set in the realms of death, the supernatural and the afterlife. 

“At the residence, we will be working on a new site-specific performance Kuljettaja (Driver).” Kuljettaja is a mediator between this world and the afterlife, Charon the ferryman. We will be exploring what a driver and the act of driving might mean in the context of a performance,” the working group explains. 

The Kuljettaja performance is preceded by the working group’s performances called Rosemaryn huone (Rosemary’s Room, 2018, Lammassaari), in which the viewer was placed in a room of fear, and Huone jossa me tavataan (The Room Where We Meet, 2025 Taidekoti Kirpilä), in which the performance took the viewer to a place where they encountered the dead.  

The residency will give the working group the opportunity to collaborate on the production from an early stage. “Now we have the chance to dream and imagine the world of this performance together,” they say.

Jenni Kivelä & Kiltit ihmiset produces high-quality and original art, both independently and in collaboration with other actors in the dance and cultural sectors. In addition to traditional stages, performances are held in specific locations, and the works have been described as naive, sensitive, multi-layered and audience-friendly.

Room for Thought, Art and Encounters

There is a variety of representatives of different fields of art working at the Saari Residence maintained by Kone Foundation in Mynämäki, Finland. The artists are encouraged to engage in communal interaction and potential collaboration. The artists are also offered opportunities to deepen their thinking relating to ecology and other sustainability matters in a unique and inspiring rural setting.

In a meeting held on 12 June 2026, the Kone Foundation Board of Trustees decided on the grantees to be awarded a Saari residency in 2027. In total, more than 220,000 euros of funding was granted to those who will be working in the residence.

List of recipients for the individual residencies
List of recipients for the group residencies

Additional information 

Leena Kela, Residency Director
+358 40 732 3628
leena.kela@koneensaatio.fi