Envisioning Uusimaa

The future is envisioned through three themes:

1. Climate neutrality means a transition toward ecological solutions, such as bio and circular economy, new materials, energy technologies, and hydrogen-based production. How does this transition affect our ways of consuming, moving, or relating to nature?

1. People’s city combines healthcare, wellbeing technologies, digital services, and cultural urban development. How does our everyday life change when the urban environment begins to respond, measure, and anticipate? What happens to interaction, privacy, and community?

1. Transforming industry is built on AI, automation, robotics, quantum computing, and the data economy. How do work, agency, and everyday life change in this transition? What remains and what disappears when Uusimaa’s industry and economy move to the next phase?

The themes will be explored in workshops led by experts.

1. Choose one of three future themes (climate neutrality, people’s city, or transforming industry)
2. Register and participate in your chosen theme’s virtual workshop in early 2026 (exact date and schedule will be announced later)
3. Develop your vision on your chosen theme using the AI Vision Lab toolkit and submit your vision to the competition

You can also optionally participate in the AI Vision Lab workshop on October 23, 2025, where the toolkit for creating future visions will be designed together. The workshop is open to everyone, but participation is not mandatory for entering the vision competition.

The workshop is worthwhile if you want to:

• Be involved in influencing the toolkit’s content
• Familiarize yourself with AI and its possibilities in artistic work in advance
• Network with other participants at the project’s start

AI Vision Lab is a toolkit for creating future visions, built together with artists and experts. The selection of tools and methods is based on participants’ own interests, experiences, and goals.

You can optionally participate in the AI Vision Lab workshop on October 23, 2025, where the toolkit’s direction and content will be defined together. In the workshop, you’ll get to explore different approaches and share views on what tools could be used to illustrate and develop future visions to support artistic thinking.

Participation in the workshop is not mandatory for entering the vision competition, but it’s worthwhile if you want to:

• Be involved in influencing the toolkit’s content
• Familiarize yourself with AI and its possibilities in artistic work in advance
• Network with other participants at the project’s start

The workshop will be facilitated by Jukka Hautamäki, a Helsinki-based media artist (MFA). He works with AI, lens-based media, sound, light, and electronics. His installations and generative works examine the dialogue between AI and humans, and its impact on the creative process in visual arts. In Hautamäki’s art, AI functions both as a source of thought and observation, and as an independent agent. His artistic practice is research-oriented and process-based, incorporating a pedagogical component alongside an art-theoretical framework. Hautamäki’s work has been widely exhibited in Finland and internationally in cities such as Beirut, Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, Bergen, Berlin, and Reykjavik.

Time: October 23, 2025, 10:00-15:00
Location: Helsinki XR Center, Hämeentie 135 A, 00560 Helsinki, 3rd floor
Facilitator: Ai artist Jukka Hautamäki

The AI Vision Lab toolkit content will be utilized in early 2026’s theme-specific virtual workshops, where you’ll work on your chosen theme with expert support.

In early 2026, three theme-specific virtual workshops will be organized where you’ll work on your chosen theme with expert support. In the workshops, you’ll be able to delve deeper into your theme and develop your own vision using the AI Vision Lab toolkit.

What is a vision? A vision is an artistic view of the future. It can be a finished work, concept, plan, or documented research process. Your vision can be critical, utopian, speculative, or cautionary. The form is free: visual, interactive, narrative, or spatial. The most important thing is that your vision opens new perspectives on your chosen theme and sparks discussion about what Uusimaa could be like.

In the workshops, you’ll receive support from both theme-related experts and in using AI. Each workshop provides space to think differently. What haven’t we noticed yet? What questions haven’t we asked?

Visions created in the workshops will participate in an international vision competition, with participating artists and cultural sector professionals from different EU countries.

Main prize: €2,000

All competition entries will be presented in late 2026 at the Envisioning Uusimaa virtual exhibition at virtual house IloNovi.

Competition entries will be evaluated by a multidisciplinary jury, including representatives from the arts, AI research, and Uusimaa development expert networks. The evaluation emphasizes artistic execution, depth of theme exploration, and the vision’s ability to spark discussion. Additionally, a public vote will be organized.

Art and culture help us look at the world from new angles. They open alternative realities, challenge familiar ways of thinking, and provide tools to process the uncertainty arising from change. That’s why envisioning Uusimaa’s future needs artists and creative professionals.