Something new is cooking in Pihlajamäki

Koekeittiö is a working laboratory and performance space founded by seven artists in Pihlajamäki, Helsinki, exploring food from an artistic perspective. It invites people to spend time in a city internationally renowned for its architectural landscapes.

Pihlajamäki is one of Finland’s first industrially produced suburban neighbourhoods, where high-quality 1960s architecture thrives. The area is characterised by its close proximity to forests and rocky terrain, with housing that remains spacious and close to nature.

Artist Niina Tervo first visited the derelict building along Vuolukiventie, the winding road that runs through the Pihlajamäki area, in December 2023. The space had been empty for years. However, things soon started happening in the former bar-pizzeria as a group of seven artists, assembled by Tervo, began working in the space. The previous business had left behind a somewhat useful kitchen and a beautiful old bar counter, but according to Sonja Donner apart from those, the place was “an utter wreck.”

In addition to Tervo and Donner, the group consists of artists Eeva Rönkä, Jani Anders Purhonen, Océane Bruel, Joona Sorsa, and Eeva Peura. During the first months, the group’s main task was to clear the premises of any remaining items. The space, which had previously housed two separate businesses, had to be restructured–the dance floor had to go. “We had to get rid of everything so we could start with a ‘clean slate’,” says Joona Sorsa, one of the artists involved in the project.

Still renovations on Vuolukiventie dragged on as the space presented the new habitants with a bunch of unexpected challenges in the form of electricity issues and a lack of functioning water outlets. “When you have no money nor professional help, things take time,” says Jani Purhonen.

By autumn 2024, the space had begun to take shape, and Koekeittiö hosted its first series of events. A two-night dinner experience served as a soft launch, aiming to raise funds for the venue. Tickets were priced at €50 per person, with each dinner accommodating 24 guests. The group advertised the event on Instagram with a very simple phrase of “tickets for dinner”, nothing too fancy, too exciting. As the above mentioned issues with the electricity and water were resolved, the dinner party went ahead. “It was quite an ambitious project,” says Sorsa. “I bought two hotplates from a discount store, thinking I could still return them after the gig, but in the end, the ticket sales covered the cost, so I got to keep them.”

The guests were served an eight-course menu, including dishes that featured elements of classic fine dining, such as sculptures assembled from corn puffs and crisps, vegetables sourced from Bruel’s allotment, and fermented produce by the Bebetton collective, formed by Rönkä and Purhonen.

According to Sorsa, the group would have been willing to continue their work with the existing resources, even without external funding. However, this would have meant building their operations around the pair of small hotplates.

The artists were fortunate: Koekeittiö became one the projects funded by the prosperous Kone Foundation by the end of 2024.

With the foundation’s two-year grant, the group behind Koekeittiö have been able to purchase kitchen equipment, and the funding enables them to continue organising themed events even in the future.

The themes during the first year of operation explore topics related to sound production and recordings in the kitchen, the choreography of recipes, and history through preservation techniques and architecture. By using food as a medium, the themes aim to challenge and reshape established conventions in food culture through art and science.

Koekeittiö also plans to improve its kitchen by acquiring an oven. “We want to make the kitchen truly functional to create a foundation for creative work in a space that is open to everyone. The grant gives us freedom, as we are no longer constrained by limited resources or kitchen equipment,” says Sorsa.

According to Purhonen, the kitchen is not intended as a space for professional cooking as such but rather as a place to facilitate processes in which food itself is the subject and material. “We want to encourage activities that are rarely possible in an elitist gallery setting–such as simply hanging out or spending time together, even outside of organised events.”

“We want to encourage activities that are rarely possible in an elitist gallery setting–such as simply hanging out or spending time together, even outside of organised events.” Jani Anders Purhonen

The project’s goal is to build a platform that fosters multidisciplinary artistic and scientific interaction centred around food. It seeks to develop collective ways of working that are non-hierarchical. The group also aims to attract new audiences for food art and food-based expression by providing an environment suited to working with food through artistic thinking.

According to Sonja Donner, the Pihlajamäki area already has an active community and strong grassroots culture. The venue, which the artists stumbled upon by chance, was well known by locals. “Some people really miss it, while others are just relieved that ‘thank God, it’s not becoming a beer joint again.’”

The artists aim to engage locals living around the Koekeittiö space through the activities that are on offer. For Christmas, the space hosted puurojuhla, a traditional celebration that involves bowls of hot porridge while a local bossa nova band played. The action in itself is important, since a a very typical pattern of urban gentrification often involves an all too familiar rhythm of artists and creatives moving into areas considered rougher around the edges, lured by lower rents and larger spaces better suited to artistic work. The artistic activity, in turn, then developed drawing in curators, gallery owners and art lovers, often attracting a new kind of wealth to these previously overseen areas, and eventually new residents arrive as gentrification accelerates. The cycle drives up local property prices, ultimately forcing artists to move on.

“We want to create universally appealing events rather than just running pop-up cafés in Pihlajamäki for people visiting from the CBD area. The events themselves are interesting enough to make people want to come,” says Sorsa.

According to Donner, Helsinki is a city with a strong central focus, whereas many other European cities consist of interconnected neighbourhoods with multiple centres. “In Helsinki, many areas are seen as small and fragile, but if one neighbourhood gains traction, that’s often where things stay.”

She isn’t worried about people not wanting to come to Pihlajamäki. “I trust that the place will be discovered,” she says.

“I trust that the place will be discovered.” Sonja Donner

Jani Purhonen envisions Koekeittiö as a kind of a nest or an outpost–a workspace that doesn’t always have to cater to an audience. At times, the space will take a breather, free of visitors while new ideas are being developed. “We’ve wanted to host small, intimate events where we can limit the scale and nature of the gathering. Not everything has to be a massive opening night,” he explains.

The group emphasises that the goal is to organise events in a way that genuinely engages the local area. If a Koekeittiö summer café opens this year, then that in itself will be an interesting community event. Not because it offers something particularly exotic, but because it aligns with the existing services in the area.

Koekeittiö refrains from being a space styled to fit the air of Pihlajamäki but naturally aims to integrate into the surrounding architecture, neighbourhood, and its way of life.

“It’s a space that follows its own impulses, without profiling itself too strictly,” says Donner.

A kind of experiment or koe, in community-building.

Koekeittiö, working laboratory and performance space: Vuolukiventie 7, 00710 Helsinki. Find more information at Instagram: @k.o.e.k.e.i.t.t.i.o.