Finland presents Aeolian Suite by Jenna Sutela at the 61st La Biennale di Venezia

Curated by Stefanie Hessler, Aeolian Suite unfolds as a multisensory environment,
transforming the pavilion into a windscape of sound and movement. The artwork is
composed using meteorological data, musical instruments (such as a clothesline, wind
machines, and a children’s woodwinds orchestra), and the winds from Venice, Helsinki, and beyond.

Aeolian Suite explores the ambivalence of the wind—an atmospheric presence that is
intangible and unpredictable. Wind transcends earthbound logic while simultaneously being entangled in our lives and a mirror to our planetary impact. It acts as a source of true randomness for computation, divination, and music, and as a carrier of particles, microbes, seeds, and messages.

In this elemental drama set in the Pavilion of Finland, the five Venetian winds—Tramontana, two different Boras, Scirocco, and Garbin—become central protagonists, singing the weather while acting as guides for listening. The characters, styled with hair artist Sara Mathiasson, take on identities inspired by the shifting weather patterns. By personifying the atmospheric forces that shape Venice and the increasingly volatile global climate, the work addresses environmental questions from the mundane to the existential.

The scenography, designed by Celeste Burlina, is set in the spirit of Commedia dell’arte
traveling theatre and reflects the history of Alvar and Elissa Aalto’s pavilion from 1956,
which was originally intended as a mobile construction. Likewise, the vocal characterization is inspired by grammelot, the art of speaking without words from the same theater tradition, communicating instead through rhythm, tone, and gesture.

Aeolian Suite studies predictive processes, like environmental simulations and weather
forecasting, in discussion with scientists at the Institute of Marine Sciences CNR ISMAR. Simultaneously, it explores mystical and sensorial ways of knowing, like the practice of deep listening. While acknowledging that it is impossible to model a system from within without changing it, the work aims to take a different approach by tuning into the environment.

"Against the logic of noise cancellation and weather prediction, Aeolian Suite embraces the wind’s unpredictability and its fully relational being,” said Jenna Sutela. “We can only hear wind as it blows into, out of, or against things like trees, alleys, flutes, wings, or the
Merihaansilta bridge in Helsinki. To listen to the wind, to let it take over the microphone, is a way of staying porous to the world, of recognizing that intelligence moves in more
directions than we can see.”

Curator Stefanie Hessler added, “The pavilion whisks us into an expanded conversation
with the atmosphere – one that moves between scientific measurement and poetic
intuition, between control and surrender. Sutela sensitizes us to forces that exceed human scale while simultaneously summoning us to sound the whispers and roars of the winds with our full sensorium, wit, and languages beyond those known to us as of yet.”

Main Image:

Image credit: Jenna Sutela, Aeolian Suite, 2026 (work in progress). Pavilion of Finland at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Hertta Kiiski, courtesy of Frame Contemporary Art Finland.

Crediti immagine: Jenna Sutela, Aeolian Suite, 2026. Il Padiglione della Finlandia alla 61. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte – La Biennale di Venezia. Foto di Hertta Kiiski