ANNA PESONEN

[MA SCULPTURE ’26] Artist Spotlight  Anna Pesonen (b. Finland) works in the ruins of progress — acceleration, extraction, exhaustion, systems of domination. She transmutes and inverts their material residues — the mined, the militarised, the monumental — against the conditions that produced them, to make space for the unruly. Her practice moves across scales, in stone, steel, beeswax — spanning sculpture, sound, installation, video, painting. Pesonen‘s working methodology, Post-Futurism, sinks deeper into the accumulated material conditions of the present and excavates what forms of encounter remain possible inside the collapse of futurism. The methodology formed during her time living in Japan, after a decade producing high-fashion imagery, fostering an acute awareness of the spectacle and the structural conditions beneath it. Anna Pesonen is a Finnish-Karelian artist.  She trained in stone carving in Pietrasanta, Italy. She founded the ‘Critical Futures Society’ at the Royal College of Art, London. Her installation BASTION OF REFUGIA — a large-scale parabolic stone sculpture based on wartime sound mirrors, inverted from surveillance into a transmitter of ‘kelkettely’, an endangered Karelian vocal tradition — is currently on view as the Finnish Pavilion at the Malta Biennale 2026. @annapesonen @royalcollegeofart Portraits by Ida May

Excited to show a new body of work in June at RCA 2026 Show alongside many incredible artists. Opening June 17 at Royal College of Art, London.

Getting my installation ready for the RCA2026 show in June. One year of cooketh coming together then — come !!

Site II — Abercombie’s Bastion @maltabiennale.art Echoing the Karelia vocal traditions call-and-response style, the installation took place between two sites within Fort St Elmo. A call goes out at the main sculptural installation, pauses, and is answered within Abercrombie’s Bastion, a curved brutalist gun emplacement.

The installation broadcasts ‘kelkettely’, a joik-based vocal practice from Karelia - a border region between Finland and Russia - whose continuity was severed by border regimes, language suppression policies, and displacement of the Karelian communities during and after WWII, a history interwoven with my own family story. Through this work I examine survival not outside hostile systems but within them, foregrounding how past geopolitical violences continue to shape the present in a period of rising authoritarianism and blatant disregard for International Law, alongside the slow erosion of collective security frameworks – geopolitical conditions that echo the 1930’s. This iteration of the sound work created in collaboration with Finnish-Karelian ethnomusicologist and vocalist Karoliina Kantelinen and Space Afrika.

First biennale, curating and producing my own work from beginning to end. I needed to lean into trusting that I can pull it off in a short span of time, while completing a MA degree. That was only possible because there is a community to lean into. Throughout the process many generous people stepped in to help and support — from advice and mentoring conversations, to passing on technical knowledge and skills… Big and small, all integral, and I remain so grateful to all of you. Catalogue is out — short text inside. Full essays follow later in the year. BASTION OF REFUGIA represents Finland at the @maltabiennale 2026.

BASTION OF REFUGIA — Finlands first National Pavilion at Malta Biennale. A site-specific large-scale sculptural and sonic installation staged within a former military fortification, Fort St Elmo, the work reclaims obsolete military surveillance technology - parabolic sound mirrors once used for aerial threat detection - and redirects them as instruments of cultural transmission. The installation broadcasts kelkettely, a joik-based vocal practice from Karelia - a border region between Finland and Russia - whose continuity was severed by border regimes, language suppression policies, and displacement of Karelian communities during and after WWII, a history interwoven with Pesonen’s own family story. The sound work is created by Pesonen in collaboration with Finnish-Karelian vocalist and ethnomusicologist Karoliina Kantelinen and Space Afrika, who co-produced the composition. Echoing kelkettely’scall-and-response style, the installation unfolds between two sites within Fort St Elmo. A vocal call emerges by the sculpture, pauses, and is answered within Abercrombie’s Bastion, a curved brutalist gun emplacement. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to everyone who has been involved with this body of work over the past years — special thanks on the biennale iteration to Jean & Eryl Vella and Halmann Vella without who this work would not have been possible, Joshua Inyang, Joshua Tarelle and Karoliina Kantelinen for lending their gifts, Anthony Bonnici, Andrew Borg Wirth, Mark Camilleri, Laura Blakeman, Millie Dexter, Aleksi Malmberg and Sara Kärpänen from Finnish Institute of UK & Ireland, Juha Huuskonen, Matti Lassila Ambassador of Finland in Rome for their support and guidance over these past months. Concept & curation & production: Anna Pesonen Sound work created in collaboration with @space_afrika & @karoliinakantelinen Fabrication: @halmann_vella Communication: @lb____agency Photo: @julianvassallo

For The Storm They Endure, 2024 Nero Marquina From an ongoing body of work inverting military listening devices and working with parabolic curve Photo: Federico Gherardi