The Culture Trail Saari ResidenceFor residency applicants Saari Residence in Mynämäki, Finland Working at the Saari Residence Who can apply? What we offer Accommodation and workspaces Instructions for the online grant service Evaluation and decisions Frequently asked questions For Saari residents Accepting the residency and arriving at the Saari Residence Use of the residency grant and rescheduling Payment of residency grants Living and working at the Saari Residence Residency programmes Taxation and grant certificate Residency report The Saari Well Communication and social media Mentioning Kone Foundation and Saari Residence and the logos Saari Alumni Previous Residency Artists Community artist Ecologically sustainable residency The Culture Trail The Saari Invited Artist Residencies Reflected About Saari Residence History of Saari Manor Saari Residence co-operation The Advisory Board of the Saari Residence Saari Residence staff The Culture Trail between the Saari Residence and Mietoinen bay is maintained collaboratively within the project Mietoistenlahti – Experiences in Nature for Everyone by Saari Residence for artists and the Association for Nature Conservation in Mynämäki Region. This recreational route is almost half a kilometre long and displays contemporary art. The exhibition is open for everyone year-round. Culture Trail exhibition Getting there Accessibility Partners Back to the top Culture Trail exhibition 2025–2026 In May 2025, there are new works on display on the Culture Trail that runs in the vicinity of the Saari Manor. The Culture Trail will feature new works by artists who worked in the residence in the winter of 2024 and the spring of 2025. Photo: Juss Virkkumaa Along the Culture Trail you will find poet Milka Luhtaniemi’s (Finland) marble carving You Did Not Know You Had Gone, artist Emilia Sølvsten’s (Denmark/Netherlands) slate carving A Linking Entity and artist and researcher Jürgen Buchinger’s (Austria/Switzerland) piece The Story of Landscapes is Both Easy and Hard to Tell. Milka Luhtaniemi You Did Not Know You Had Gone (2025) The two-part poetic fragment sits in the natural landscape on two marble slabs resembling an open book. The work speaks of the state of not-knowing that poetry evokes, which is private and intimate for the reader. Understanding comes from embracing the space and future that reading creates. The title of the work is part of the meaning of the text as a whole, forming an agile triangular movement; similarly, the engraved poetic fragment itself can be read in four different directions. The shape of the slabs was inspired by the shape of an open book. An open book is where text lies in time and space, and where the movement of reading and viewing is inevitably interrupted at the turn of the page. The gap between the marble slabs allows the surrounding nature to burst into the work. Marble implies longevity and stability, and reflects light and shadow in different ways throughout the day. The poetic fragment implies inner slowness and the subtle shifting of thoughts. The concept, installation and text are by Milka Luhtaniemi. The engraving was commissioned from sculptor Iisa Lepistö. The steel supports were made by Joni Kärkkäinen. Emilia Sølvsten A Linking Entity (2025) At the Saari Residence, the remote winter landscape inspired the creation of snow sculptures that embodied the ephemeral nature of the qivittoq, a wandering monster from Greenlandic folklore. These transient forms inhabited and transformed the landscape, mirroring the qivittoq‘s fleeting existence—moving between realms before returning to the earth. The work explored storytelling traditions that, throughout time, have connected human experiences to landscapes and their inhabitants. One outcome of this exploration was a poem engraved into sedimentary rock at the manor site. The engraved stone will be displaced along the Culture Trail, offering visitors a chance to encounter, stop by, or bypass it entirely. Depending on the direction from which one approaches the work, the engraved poem can be read differently. While the poem has an intended order, the sequence might shift depending on the reader’s perspective. What connects us through time? How do we stay in touch with what is no longer physically present? These are questions that guide Sølvsten’s practice. She seeks to uncover the linking entities between the living and the dead, the past and the present. In this work, memory becomes that connecting force—a memory embodied in the engraved stone, symbolizing an exchange of experience between herself and the landscape where she has worked over a period of two months. The work, titled Linking Entity, points to this vital connection, offering a tangible reminder of how we relate to the landscapes we inhabit and the stories they carry. Jürgen Buchinger The Story of Landscapes is Both Easy and Hard to Tell (2025) The Story of Landscapes is Both Easy and Hard to Tell is part of the speculative artistic research endeavor Time out of Present – a research into the sounds and cycles of nature happening outside of the human immediate sensory resonance. It aims to make audible the manifold cycles and seasonal alterations in our surroundings through sonification of environmental data and passive acoustic monitoring. Long-term data series of different places are transformed into sound to explore landscape and build new relations to our environment and its inhabitants through sound. Inside the ceramic sculpture is a microcontroller with several sensors that record environmental data: Temperature, humidity, concentration of volatile organic compounds, particulate matter in the air, etc. All conditions that affect humans and other animals, some of which we can more accurately sense than others. The Story of Landscapes is Both Easy and Hard to Tell makes the changes in these measurements perceptible. Changes that happen outside of the human time-frames, but that, through time-remapping and sonification can be made audible to us. The work thus aims to de-center the human perspective and tell the story of a landscape from the point of view of the landscape itself. The work challenges us to change our point of view to engage with our natural surroundings in a different and more emotionally relatable way. Getting there The Culture Trail’s address is Saarenrantatie 21, 23140 Hietamäki. From the crossroads leading to the manor, walk on for about 50 metres, and the Culture Trail is on the right side of the road. Alternatively, the Trail is accessible from the parking lot of the birdwatching towers at Saarentie 230, 23140 Hietamäki. Parking spaces are available in the parking area leading to the bird observation tower, located along Saarentie, and next to the Sillankari bird observation tower along Saarenrantatie. Visitors on the Culture Trail are kindly requested to avoid moving around in the manor area to ensure peace and quiet for everyone working and residing in the Residence. Accessibility The Culture Trail is accessible by car. There are parking spaces along Saarentie in the car park leading to the birdwatching tower, as well as close to the Sillankari birdwatching tower along Saarenrantatie. The Culture Trail is a gravelled path about 500 metres long. There are level differences along the trail which means that the trail is not accessible independently, for example by wheelchair. Partners We have partnered with the Mynämäki Region Nature Conservation Association in the upkeep of the Culture Trail.