Nordic Arts & Crafts Symposium
Saturday May 10th 2025
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
(check-in and coffee 9:15-9:45)
Campbell Conference Facility
Munk School of Global Affairs
1 Devonshire Place
University of Toronto
Scandinavian and Finnish Art, Craft and Architecture
Painting Politically: National Romanticism and the Rise of Social Democracy
Michelle Facos, Indiana University-Bloomington
10:15 am
In the final decades of the nineteenth century, progressive artists in Finland, Norway, and Sweden actively promoted a democratic, egalitarian ethos consistent with that of William Morris as part of a broader movement toward Social Democracy. Equally urgent for Finns and Norwegians, of course, was national sovereignty. These varied objectives unified under the ideology of National Romanticism, whose twin purpose was social solidarity and egalitarian political reform fostered by imagery that reminded compatriots of their common heritage and history.
Michelle Facos was the first to introduce Anglophone audiences to Swedish National Romantic painting with her 1998 book, Nationalism and the Nordic Imagination. Swedish Art of the 1890s (California). She is a professor at Indiana University-Bloomington and has been a guest lecturer in Germany, Poland, and Sweden. She is co-curator of the exhibition “The Scandinavian Home: Art and Identity 1880-1920” opening at Frick-Pittsburgh in September. For exhibition updates and behind-the-scenes insights, follow @homeashistory on Instagram. For more on Nordic art, check out Facos’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@mfacosarthistorian and website: www.michellefacos.com.
The Myth of “Nordic Craft” and the Reality of Specificity
Monica Obniski, High Museum of Art, Atlanta
11:15 am
The term “Nordic craft” might conjure up ideas of dala horses or woolen blankets, but the history of craft production in the Nordic countries of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland is quite rich and varied. Using a framework that aims to shed the weight of myths surrounding Nordic production, this talk will provide some social context from the late 19th century into the mid-twentieth century that enabled the making of important examples of furniture, glass, ceramics, and textiles.
Monica Obniski is a design historian and curator, currently at the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, Georgia), where she is responsible for collecting, exhibiting, and programming a global collection of decorative arts and design, which includes a yearly piazza design commission. Her curatorial practice engages social issues and is rooted in architecture and design history. Monica’s most recent projects include Scandinavian Design and the United States (2020-23), Stephen Burks: Shelter in Place(2022-24), and Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other (2023-24); she is currently preparing the exhibition Isamu Noguchi: “I am not a designer” for 2026-27. She has held curatorial posts at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Monica received an MA from the Bard Graduate Center and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Lunch provided 12:15 pm
A Visit to Hvitträsk
Mikko Teräsvirta, National Museum of Finland
1:30 pm
Hvitträsk is a national romantic building complex designed by three architects, located in Kirkkonummi right by Helsinki. It served as a home and office for three architect families (Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen) and was built between 1901 and 1903. It is considered to be a central work of art from the Finnish Art Nouveau period.
A fire occurred in the northern wing of the main building in 1922, and a new northern section was built between 1929 and 1936, designed by architect Eero Saarinen, the son of Eliel Saarinen. Hvitträsk remained a summer residence for the Saarinen family until 1949, when Saarinen moved to USA and sold it to private ownership. It has operated as a museum since 1971. Hvitträsk is presented as the architectural home of Eliel Saarinen from the early 20th century. The complex also includes a terrace garden.
Mikko Teräsvirta is responsible for museum services in three of the National Museum of Finland’s sites, including Hvitträsk. He has over 20 years of experience in the museum field and has a master's degree in ethnology from the University of Helsinki.
The Plight of Craft
Taisto H Mäkelä, University of Colorado Denver, Emeritus
2:30 pm
William Morris espoused principles of production and social values that confronted those dominant in the Industrial Age. Morris, along with AWN Pugin and John Ruskin, passionately argued for a return to Medieval social models as an antidote to the dehumanizing machine age. The goal was to restore the value of handcraft and the status of the worker but multiple contradictions and conflicts were inevitably involved. How successful was Morris?
To conclude, a few traditional wood churches in Finland will be reviewed. These buildings, arguably, are representative of an authentic cultural expression that continues into the present in Finland. A recent example is the remarkable Kärsämäki Shingle Church by OOPEAA Architects, 2004. It represents a rejection of industrialized anonymity while contributing to the historical lineage honoring the traditions of woodwork and craft.
Taisto H Mäkelä grew up in West Vancouver, Canada. Beginning at the age of fourteen, he was educated on construction sites by his father, a carpenter. Taisto went on to receive a Diploma in Building Technology from the British Columbia Institute of Technology followed by studies in the UK and US on architectural history, theory, and criticism. His PhD dissertation at Princeton University was titled “Imagined Affinities: Architectural Representation and the Rhetoric of Nationalism in Finland at the Turn of the Century”. A former Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver, Taisto’s research interests include aesthetic theory, the modern movement, privileged spaces of cultural institutions, classical and vernacular traditions. He lectures on these topics internationally and has served as a visiting faculty member in Helsinki, Bucharest, Beirut, and Bangkok. In 2024, he was also appointed a Visiting Associate Professor at Colorado College.
Registration, including lunch and reception:
Members: $ 95.
Non-members: $120.
Students with valid ID: $30
To register, please sign up at
https://forms.gle/EP9gYvuKm7oUmV2g8
before Monday, May 5th.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WMSC 2025 Book Club - TBD
Are you interested in joining the WMSC for our summer book club? Sign up and let us know!
Postponed!
Join WMSC member Lera Kotsyuba, reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, through the lens of William Morris' 'News From Nowhere', and ideas around a better world!
We're finalizing plans for some more exciting events for 2024. Keep coming back to check for details and/or follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook!
