Old Granary, Fiskars
8.5.-25.9.2011
The Fiskars Cooperative will stage an exceptionally significant event next summer – the first major exhibition devoted to tools, their evolution and properties ever held in Finland. The world as shaped by humans emerged when man learned to use sticks and stones as tools and later to develop increasingly versatile special tools and implements from new materials. Our environment is full of different tools, but for some reason they have remained the means for making things that are more valuable or significant: food, clothes, means of transport, buildings, art objects etc.
However, tools as such are the result of long-term development and design, with considerable requirements placed on their ergonomic properties and materials. Tools must function so well that they are natural extensions of the hand, and because they often are precisely this, they are not noticed. Tools aptly crystallize the philosophy of modernist design with good materials, simple form and functionality creating an aesthetically pleasing product.
TOOLS addresses various ways of considering tools and implements and their use. On display will be assemblages of exhibits related to the design and materials of tools. The exhibition will include objects made at the Fiskars and Billnäs ironworks ranging from cutlery and scissors to larger implements, and examples of how simple tools still function alongside modern machinery. There will also be tools used by the artisans of Fiskars and objects made with them and items from collector Pertti Nurmela’s interesting collection of tools.
