Ritva Tuomi & Lumi Tuomi. Lahja (Kanneljärven tammi). 2025. Analogue photograph.
Ritva Tuomi & Lumi Tuomi. Alku. 2025. Analogue photograph.
Ritva Tuomi. Taimi. 1990. Analogue photograph.
Lumi Tuomi. Ysky (Syli). 2024. Analogue photograph, pigment print on Dibond, decorative wooden frame, museum glass, 62 x 50,5 cm. Frame designed by Lumi Tuomi and framed by Essi Immonen.
Ritva Tuomi. Punaherukkakädet. 2003. Analogue photograph.
Ritva Tuomi & Lumi Tuomi. Viimeinen kesä. 2008/2026. Analogue photograph, pigment print on Dibond, decorative wooden frame, museum glass, 91 x 61 cm. Photograph by Ritva Tuomi. Frame designed by Lumi Tuomi and framed by Essi Immonen.
Ritva Tuomi. Kevätkylvö. 2007. Analogue photograph.
Ritva Tuomi. Lumi ja Tuisku kehäkukkien kanssa. 2003. Analogue photograph.
Ritva Tuomi. Kevätkaski. 1989. Analogue photograph.
Lumi Tuomi. Syvyssadu (Syyspuutarha). 2024. Analogue photograph.
Exhibited at Poriginal gallery, Pori Art Museum, 24.04. – 18.06.2026
Muaman sadu (Mother’s Garden) is a joint project by Ritva Tuomi and Lumi Tuomi. It examines the everyday life of three generations of Karelians in the embrace of a shared garden, investigating the intertwined fates of people and plants. In the exhibition, photographs by two generations of artists merge and depict the garden as a living archive of Karelian culture.
After the war, Karelian evacuees lost their centuries-old connections to plants, waterways and the land. For many evacuees and their families, the yards and gardens established in new localities became replicas of their lost homes, places of refuge where their own culture could be practiced.
The exhibition highlights the significance of heirloom and traditional plants, as well as the seeds and seedlings brought by evacuees from Karelia across the border. The works mirror plant heritage to the endangered Karelian language and fading traditions of gardening — diverse cultural heritage that would disappear without human care.
At the heart of the exhibition are gardens established in a shared family yard in Espoo and cottage in Vihti by the artists’ mother and grandmother Maiju, that they tend to together. In the works spanning the 1980s to the present, the artists examine how Karelian culture has preserved in their works, which have become a collaboration between generations and species.
The exhibition aims to sensitise the viewer to the labour of preserving heirloom plants and cultural heritage, but also to the shared recovery of people and nature in the garden. The participatory work Pala maata (Piece of Land) invites you to physically experience the value of a delicate seed and, if you wish, to carry it with you.