Exploring the possibility of engineered bliss: Helsinki exhibition seeks solutions
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Anniina Koivu, the curator of the 2025 festival's principal exhibition at Helsinki Design Week, has created an uplifting romp that explores various themes around happiness. The exhibition, titled 'Happiness', is located on the fourth floor of the 1911 Suomitalo building, the hub for Helsinki Design Week.
The 'Happiness' exhibition is a thought-provoking exploration of happiness, a complex subject that is paradoxical by its very nature. Koivu found the subject matter of happiness a welcome relief after years spent digging into the murkier realm of survivalism for her previous project.
Each object in the exhibition reveals something about happiness. From representative objects, some Finnish, some universal, some literal, some oblique, some cerebral, some pop-cultural, Koivu has carefully curated a collection that invites visitors to reflect on their own understanding of happiness.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is a mushroom basket, planned to be included in the Milan Design Week 2026 iteration of 'Happiness'. Koivu states that it would be too obvious in Finland due to the country's association with picking mushrooms and happiness.
The exhibition design, by XPO, features silver-wrapped gift boxes turned into plinths and helium-filled silver balloons with gift tags for exhibition texts. Koivu has commissioned ten designers to create pieces for the show, and many of them see happiness as a state of flow in their work.
In one room of the exhibition, seventy stories about the history of the smile are displayed. Koivu ends the exhibition with a tongue-in-cheek bowl of pick-n-mix, asking visitors to take one for a quick sugar high if they still need cheering up.
The 'Happiness' exhibition also features local studio Company's 'Dance Shoes' for small children, which are enduringly endearing and were discovered serendipitously. The exhibition also includes a Jane Fonda fitness video and an orange fibreglass section of a bench from the Helsinki metro.
Interestingly, the Global Wellness Institute valued the wellness economy in 2023 at 5.4 trillion euros. However, Koivu points out that this industry thrives on unhappiness. Happiness might not easily be measurable or definable in the stricter sense, but it is identifiable and relatable.
Finland, which has topped the UN's annual 'World Happiness Report' for the last eight years, is a fitting location for this exhibition. Koivu's captions for the objects in the exhibition are zippy, zesty, and hold the hand throughout the journey.
For further reading, you can visit Anniina Koivu's website and Helsinki Design Week's website. Koivu plans to curate the exhibition 'Happiness' again at the Milan Design Week 2026, continuing to explore the theme of whether happiness can be designed, building on her previous work with the "Designing Happiness" exhibition at the Helsinki Design Week.
