Image: Auran Galleria, Turku
Auran Galleria in Turku will open 'Metsän peitto', a solo exhibition by Marja Hepo-aho, on 14 August 2026. The show runs through 8 September 2026, with an opening on Thursday 13 August during Taiteiden Yö, from 4 pm to 6 pm, according to the gallery’s invitation and exhibition calendar.
The gallery’s announcement frames the exhibition around a sharp social question: what remains when a person is no longer treated as a useful commodity? In the source text, Hepo-aho’s show is described as a praise of existence for its own sake. The presentation will fill Auran Galleria with glass works and installations that address the crumbling of civilization and the disappearance of the individual into society’s margins.
The title draws on the Finnish folk concept of metsänpeitto, or being hidden by the forest. In the traditional understanding cited by the gallery, the state is one in which communication breaks down: the world continues, but the person caught in it becomes invisible to others. Hepo-aho brings that myth into the present, linking it to a contemporary situation in which an individual either refuses the logic of capitalist productivity or falls outside it.
In the exhibition text, Hepo-aho says that 'Metsänpeitto' reveals a basic problem in the system rather than in the individual. The gallery also quotes her as saying: 'Metsänpeitto paljastaa olennaisen: ongelma ei ole yksilön sopimattomuudessa, vaan järjestelmässä, johon pitäisi sopeutua.' The statement positions the show as a reflection on adaptation, exclusion and the structures that define who can belong.
Auran Galleria says the installation makes this estrangement visible through specific material contrasts. At the center of the installation, glass moss overtakes neo-Rococo furnishings, while decomposer fungi gnaw at structures that no longer function as food. Wealth symbols are shown refusing to serve human purposes or ordinary logic, instead becoming part of a slowed natural time.
The exhibition text emphasizes that the atmosphere remains calm and consoling despite its painful starting point. It describes a utopian intermediate space in which human instrumentalism recedes, and where getting lost is not failure but the beginning of something else. The gallery’s language situates the show within a tension between social collapse and a return to natural processes, without presenting that shift as resolution.
Auran Galleria lists its exhibition address as Yliopistonkatu 7 in Turku and gives its opening hours as Tuesday to Friday 11 am to 5 pm, Saturday 11 am to 2 pm, and Sunday 1 pm to 4 pm. The gallery’s 2026 calendar places 'Metsän peitto' after 'Summer Fair II' and before the upcoming presentations of Jenni Vakkilainen, Klaus Kopu, Hannu Palosuo, Rosa Helin and 'Winter Fair'.
