Image: Lönnström Art Museum, TAIDEMUSEO
Pedaali ry presented the commendation at the Finnish Museums Association’s Public Engagement Days in Tornio on 6 October 2026. The 2026 Museum Educational Deed itself was awarded to the founding of Merkin mediakoulu.
Over two months, 'Big Botanic' attracted 11,630 visitors and reached a broad range of visitor groups. Its popularity turned the work into a shared event for the whole of Rauma, strengthening local community and making it a significant cultural phenomenon.
'Big Botanic' also operated as an active event space, hosting many guided tours and several concerts. The work included a workshop area where visitors made their own imaginative plants, and the workshop’s popularity left approximately 2,000 such plants on its shelves after the project ended.
The large-scale participatory installation offered visitors an immersive experience of a flourishing botanical garden amid the darkness of October and November 2025. Sculptor Pia Sirén created the garden from ordinary building-site materials, including tarpaulins, buckets, timber, hoses and cable ties.
The work also invited reflection on contemporary people’s relationship with nature and on the longing that exotic plants evoke for the distant and unknown.
