National Museum, Great Courtyard
Ishmail Sandstroem: Mandala

The Great Courtyard of the National Museum will be filled with the Mandala series of artworks by Ishmail Sandstroem. Implements used for the treatment of diabetes – such as insulin pens, syringes and needles, as well as blood glucose test strips and lancets – will be illuminated by LED lights. Ishmail Sandstroem believes that, with the assistance of the Mandala – Sanskrit for circle, centre or connection – we can learn to view the horrific and terrifying as beautiful and redemptive.

Entry to the courtyards of the National Museum is from Museokatu, through the gates behind the building.

* On Thursday 8 January also the exhibitions of the National Museum are open until 10pm.

The upper photo: Jussi Ratilainen

Performance time: Daily from 5 pm to 10 pm

Ishmail Sandstroem is an outsider artist with an Algerian-Swedish background. He lives in the Sunnyside precinct in Queens, New York. Sandstroem is known for his delicate, primitivist line drawings and light artworks; while these are often abstract, they are always vibrant with emotion. The curator of Ishmail Sandstroem is theatre director Petri Lehtinen.

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