Maija Kasvinen.
Maija Kasvinen.

–The months when I worked on my examination projects was a very hectic period! In the written part I analyzed if an institutional acknowledgement (such as Ars Fennica, a Finnish art prize) has an impact on common understanding on what is considered to be "good art". Narrowing down the subject has never been my strong sides... Thinking back I can see a clear link to my previous interest in brands and credibility.

–The exhibition part of the exam was related to my work. Pentti Kaskipuro was a Finnish printmaker from the city I worked for and I had access to a huge archive of his prints. Going through the works, I got interested in how some themes and objects recurred, and why my mind wanted to create a link between these works. The exhibition displayed 25 of these prints, proposing a link between them. Kaskipuro, the artist, is a very canonic figure in the scene, so the problematics of the written part were also present in the exhibition.

Start-up company

–I got a job as a curator for public arts while I was studying and I continued on that post for some time. As a public arts curator I was working closely with architects, city planners, technicians, consults and artists. We were planning residential areas and my role was to propose and coordinate art projects in these areas. Due, or thanks to, the museum director's maternity leave, I also got to work as a museum director for one year at Vantaa Art Museum. We made new alignments on the museum programme and started to work with "street". Today, Vantaa Art Museum is called Artsi and is spezialized in street art and graffiti.

–Today I work with occasional art projects but most of my time goes to my start-up company. The company, called We got Manners, will be working with research, branding and communication. It is only early stages but I hope that in a few years WGM will be a solid business and that we will have created understanding on how essential it is for businesses to understand the social, historical and cultural environment they're functioning in.