Close-up of the Havis Amanda statue. A contact microphone is attached to the statue’s cheek with blue tape to record its structural resonance. Helsinki Market Square is visible in the background on a rainy day.

Twilight of the Idols

10 July – 10 August 2026

The Finnish Civic Museum
Helsinki Central Railway Station, West Wing

Suomeksi

Statue playback schedule

Every hour

XX:00 Alexander II

XX:08 Aleksis Kivi

XX:16 Havis Amanda

XX:24 K. J. Ståhlberg

XX:32 J. L. Runeberg

XX:40 Three Smiths

XX:48 Mannerheim

The work

Twilight of the Idols brings Helsinki’s best-known statues to be experienced through sound. The work was realised by playing a tone corresponding to each sculpture’s structural resonant frequency, causing the statues to vibrate. These vibrations were recorded from the surfaces of the sculptures using contact microphones and played back to the statues in a continuous feedback loop.

The resulting sound work presents the individual sounds of the statues of Alexander II, Aleksis Kivi, Havis Amanda, K. J. Ståhlberg, J. L. Runeberg, the Three Smiths and Mannerheim.

The work was realised as part of a series of peer workshops for visually impaired participants organised by visual artist JP Kaljonen. The workshops produced artworks for public space based on visually impaired people’s experiences of the society around them.

Workgroup

JP Kaljonen, Simon Forström and sound engineer Daniel Motola

The work was developed in a workshop organised in collaboration with Näkövammaisten Kulttuuripalvelu ry (Association for Cultural Services for the Visually Impaired). The production of the work was supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the City of Helsinki and the Oskar Öflund Foundation.