Tuusula's Artist of the Year 2025 is artist and costume designer Onerva Luoma.

Helsinki-based costume designer and artist Onerva Luoma has been selected as Tuusula’s Summer Artist of the Year 2025. Luoma is a trained designer and is currently studying writing at the Kriittinen korkeakoulu (Critical University). Since graduating as a designer, she has worked mainly in costume design for theatres.

“My work is guided by play, where it is not entirely certain in advance where we are going. I am also interested in the relationships and interactions between text, images and objects,” says Onerva Luoma.

As a summer artist, Onerva Luoma explores the meaningful relationship with clothing in her art, and she brings this theme with her. Her best-known work is a conceptual art piece consisting of paintings on clothing that can be borrowed with a library card.

“As a summer artist, I am most looking forward to surprises. When you work with new people and create art in interaction with others, you cannot know in advance what will happen. That is exciting,” Luoma says. Luoma also says that he is looking forward to finding peace and quiet to focus on his own art in a new environment.

Onerva Luoma is Tuusula’s fourth summer artist. Tuusula hired its first summer artist in 2022. The purpose of the summer artist’s work is to encourage artists at the beginning of their careers to pursue their artistic work and implement the art project they presented in their application. The summer artist works in June and July in the municipality of Tuusula as part of a team of cultural producers.

Summer artist workshops: turning clothes into works of art

During the summer, the summer artist organises various workshops related to textile painting, using old clothes donated by local residents. Workshop participants get to paint clothes and take part in creating a joint textile artwork. In addition, each participant will get to write a love letter to their favourite piece of clothing.

Workshops will be held in various locations around Tuusula, and admission is free. More detailed information about the workshops, clothing collection and schedules will be provided in early June.

Further information

This content has been translated using AI