Kanerva Kartano is a Finnish visual and community artist based in Tampere. Her work explores the aesthetics of ageing, human encounter and everyday life through visual art and long-term community-based processes. She approaches ageing not as decline, but as a field of aesthetic, ethical and relational experience.
In her practice, everyday care situations can become shared cultural spaces through artistic and relational processes.
Since 2017, Kartano has worked as a community artist at Sointu Senior Services, where she develops artistic practices within eldercare environments through long-term processes embedded in everyday life. Her work unfolds slowly — through encounters, shared situations and lived experience, rather than predefined outcomes.
Artistic Practice
Kartano’s practice moves between visual art, spatial thinking and participatory processes. Her work exists in the tension between artistic expression and everyday life, where art becomes a way of perceiving, relating and being with others.
A central aspect of her work is sensitivity in encounter — the ability to remain open, to not fully know in advance as a working method that allows meaning to emerge within shared situations.
Work in Care ContextsIn eldercare environments, Kartano’s work is based on long-term collaboration with both residents and care staff. Her practice involves facilitating cultural animation within care communities, where art is not only something provided, but something lived and enacted together in everyday situations.
A central dimension of her work is facilitating cultural animation within care communities by working closely with care professionals as active cultural agents. She creates conditions where staff can move beyond task-oriented roles and engage in shared cultural and relational practices with residents. Through this, care staff become co-creators of everyday cultural life, enabling encounters where meaning, expression and participation can emerge.
Through these processes, possibilities for participation, recognition and subtle forms of emancipation can emerge — not through instruction, but through lived experience and shared presence. Through these processes, possibilities for participation and encounter can emerge, opening subtle possibilities for agency and emancipation.
Selected Projects
Rollaattorimarssi Exhibition (2025)
A community-based exhibition presenting protest signs and photographs created with older participants, highlighting their agency and voice in society.
A community-based exhibition presenting protest signs and photographs created with older participants, highlighting their agency and voice in society.
Sointu Sings Peace (2024)
A participatory songwriting project developed and recorded with residents and staff.
A participatory songwriting project developed and recorded with residents and staff.
Fairytale Forest Textile Panels (2021)
Acoustic textile panels based on community paintings created with residents and staff.
Acoustic textile panels based on community paintings created with residents and staff.
Toivo Community Musical (2016–2018)
A large-scale collaborative art process across three senior centres.
A large-scale collaborative art process across three senior centres.
You can view my projects in English here: https://www.behance.net/kanervakartano.
Background
Kartano holds a Master of Arts (Art and Design) in Art Expertise from the University of Lapland (2025). Her master’s thesis explored the aesthetics and ethics of ageing from an artist’s perspective. The Art Expertise programme at the University of Lapland prepares graduates for expert, managerial, educational and research roles across the arts and cultural sector and beyond, as well as for independent artistic and entrepreneurial practice.
She graduated as a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tampere University of Applied Sciences in 2004. Before her current role, Kartano worked for several years as a freelance artist and art teacher. This period included independent artistic work, exhibition activity and teaching visual arts in different contexts, forming the foundation for her later work in community art.
She is the author of Rohkeus kohdata – Taiteilija vanhustyössä (2023), which reflects on the ethical and artistic dimensions of encounter in care.
Other Work
Alongside her community art practice, Kartano works as an illustrator and visual designer. She has illustrated several published fairy tales and collaborated in interdisciplinary projects combining image, text and music.
Publication (in Finnish)
Kartano, K. (Taiteen edistämiskeskus, 2023)
Rohkeus kohdata – Taiteilija vanhustyössä
Courage to Face – An Artist in Elderly Care
Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike)
Rohkeus kohdata – Taiteilija vanhustyössä
Courage to Face – An Artist in Elderly Care
Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike)
Link to Master’s Thesis, University of Lapland (in Finnish, abstract in English)