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Zeynep Kaynar

@zeykaynar

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One that advises for contemporary art as a form of soft diplomacy. Gastkünserin aus Samsun, Türkei bei @tampereinterculturalart @catalysti_finland

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We had an incredibly inspiring day as a team, with the opportunity to visit two major private collections of Finnish contemporary art.

It was a privilege to spend time in conversation about why collecting contemporary art matters—not only for the collectors themselves, but for artists, cultural life and history, and the long-term development of the Finnish contemporary art ecosystem. These conversations reminded us that every artwork collected represents more than a purchase; it is an investment in artists’ work, creative practices, and the future of our shared culture.

Days like this don’t happen every day, and they make me feel incredibly grateful to be working alongside such a talented and committed team. The creativity, generosity, and dedication everyone has brought to The Art of Small this year has been truly inspiring @artbypulu @madebyericah @____maarte

As a project, we are deeply grateful for the trust our partners, collaborators, audience and advisors @kseniakaverina @korpilahtikaroliina have placed in us. A heartfelt thank you to @catalysti_finland, whose KUVI-supported programme has made this year’s edition of The Art of Small possible; to @tampereinterculturalart for supporting this year’s communications and audience development; and to our partners, including @vintageverstas @helsinkidesignweek for believing in our vision of making contemporary art and design more approachable and connected to everyday life.

We can’t wait to share the results with you.

Join us from 13 August at @myymala2 and celebrate with us as we open this year’s edition of The Art of Small. Come discover remarkable contemporary artists @aduzip of @penthousekollektiivi curated for 2026 edition, meet our professional community from the past editions, and experience why collecting art can be more approachable than you might think ✨.

#theartofsmall
#nykytaide
#kuvataide
#taidekeräily
#taidekeräilijä taken in Helsinki, Finland by @zeykaynar

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2 months ago

Reactivating my algorithm for something important coming up… with those expressive faces 😊 I’ve never really been the person to take photos while meaningful moments are happening around me.

Lately, all I’ve wanted to make time for is biking, kayaking, dancing, and quality moments with friends and family. Instead, it’s been deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines… #shitposting

And yet, another one is fast approaching for Art of Small. Stay connected to our partners @helsinkidesignweek @catalysti_finland @tampereinterculturalart and many other in the making to follow up on the launch of open call to become part of something quite meaningful ❤️

Thankfully we will have someone to document whats coming up for us @myymala2 It will be great to see what we will achieve there from another pair of eyes 🥹📸 are you our next event photographer?

Coming more info soon ✨ @madebyericah @artbypulu taken in Helsinki Finland by @zeykaynar

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4 months ago

Hello internet pals, colleagues, and friends

I’m happy to share a new collaboration between my studio and Fat Lizard Brewing Co., coming together for the opening of my exhibition The SAPP – From Gesture to Form at Kulttuuritalo Laikku.

In December, the studio received the heart-warming news that our friends at @fatlizardtaproom will continue to support the work into the new year 😊
So tomorrow evening, Fat Lizard Taproom will be joining us with a tasting of their 3.6% berry sour, featuring a special edition label with my artwork — a chance to experience a new flavour alongside new artworks, and to catch up together.

This will be a small, relaxed opening after the holidays, as I’m not quite ready for a crowd 🙈☺️
Think of it as a post-holiday gathering: a drink together on a Friday evening before dinner, and some new (and some old) work on the walls.

If you happen to miss the opening, no worries — the exhibition runs until 15.2. So, shoot me a message if you want me to accompany you at the gallery space later in the upcoming weeks ✨

It would be lovely to see you ❤️ and celebrate together tomorrow evening.

🗓 9.1.26
⏰ 18:00–19:30
📍 Keskustori 4, Tampere @kulttuuritalolaikku

PS- Curatorial visits and private meetings will be arranged by email after the first week of the exhibition. If I’ve mentioned this show to you privately before, please check your inbox! taken in Tampere, Finland by @zeykaynar

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9 months ago

This Monday, in our last creative writing session, we began as we often do: bringing small pieces of the week into the Särkijärvi with experiences, sounds, words, observations and short little notes from the previous week. I turned up “Yö Kaivopuistossa” from @idamariannaa at that moment for leaving some time, so that everyone can start writing individually.

I returned to something I had written during our previous session inspired by @seba_ahrenberg and the revelation of my last visit to the forest. Reading poetry aloud made me surprisingly self-conscious, but the piece resonated with another participant, who responded with their own writing about work, life and the autumn season blues 💙

From there, the conversation travelled somewhere none of us had planned. I guess, this is the best part of having a new group every autumn: One participant had been reading Crime and Punishment and shared a paragraph that had stayed with them. Together, we tried to understand what Dostoevsky might have meant, and we were struck by how contemporary some of its metaphors and observations still felt.

That took us with a question: What makes a piece of writing timeless? What might make something written today still meaningful many years from now?

The conversation travelled through Kafka, Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, eventually reaching Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s idea of the Lindy effect: for books and ideas, surviving through time can itself be a sign of their endurance.

Maybe we cannot decide whether something we write today will become timeless 🤷🏻‍♀️🤞🏻Time does part of that work for us. And with that thought, our creative writing sessions have now ended in Hervanta for this year, but the material we created will continue (Insert Benny Rivers here 🎧💥)

Welcome to our visual art workshops in Hervanta by @_ivana_c , and also next up join me at the Drawing Club late October, where words, songs, stories and themes from our writing sessions will find new forms through drawing and visual language.

♣️ Comment “Drawing Club” and I’ll DM you the upcoming dates and other @tampereinterculturalart activities in Hervanta supported by @tamperekaupunki and free for all. taken in Hervanta by @zeykaynar

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10 days ago

Our second creative writing session of the season brought together a group of young adults working at Tampere University’s Hervanta campus. ✍️

During our previous session, one participant brought up Stream of Consciousness, a writing method associated with writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and in Finnish literature with writers including Volter Kilpi, Eeva-Liisa Manner and Marja-Liisa Vartio.

Rather than approaching the method mainly through literary theory, we tried it through writing. We followed the movement of attention and allowed observations, memories, associations and feelings to enter the text before worrying about creating a polished story.

We also browsed different publications together, including two recent 2026 issues of @kutikuticomics magazine and @karusalli poetry collection Vedestä ja surusta, and talked about how text, image and form can work together in storytelling. And then the conversation evolved to creative writing and research communication. Through Ed Yong’s An Immense World, we discussed how complex research and specialist knowledge can become engaging writing for wider audiences.

Next week, we will return to the material created during our first two sessions to revisit the work of participants. We will refine our observations, fragments and stream-of-consciousness texts and experiment with turning them into short stories, poetry and material for a community created publication.

You don’t need previous creative writing experience, and you don’t need to have attended the earlier sessions. Come as you are, bring your curiosity for creative process 🌿

Comment ✨ below and I’ll send you more info + the location directly to your DMs. All activities are free of charge, sponsored by the Cultural Office of Tampere City and offered under the community art programme of @tampereinterculturalart by @zeykaynar

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18 days ago

Seasonal autumn post with some pretty face because, you know, we all play this algorithm game 🍂✨

We had our last cottage sesh of the season this weekend, filling our bellies with yummy mushrooms and having some treats from that dreamy @kyrodistillery x @fatlizardtaproom collab before heading into a pitch-dark sauna & swimming session. Have you ever done sauna in complete darkness? 🌟

I also met another young boy named Emil this weekend. He managed to steal my heart, as we bonded over breast milk 🐣🍼 #shitposting Now I return to the office with two pieces of news:

1) CREATIVE WRITING SESSIONS

Creative writing sessions powered by @tampereinterculturalart continue this autumn in Hervanta!

Aside from today, we’ll have community art sessions from 17:00–18:30 on:

✨ 28.09
✨ 05.10
✨ 02.11

Come join us and let’s grind a little on the creative fields, not only in our boring adult lives.

Comment ✨ below and I’ll send you more info + the location directly to your DMs.

2) DRAWING CLUBS

If writing somehow isn’t your forte, I’m also hosting drawing clubs this autumn from 14:00–16:00 on:

♣️ 24.10
♣️ 07.11
♣️ 14.11

All activities are free and materials are provided. We’ll be doing guided activities, so absolutely no previous experience is needed. Combining outcome of those two series of sessions, we dream about making something like @kutikuticomics magic. Maybe we will, when I grow up 😊 maybe we wont.

Comment ♣️ below and I’ll send the location + programme directly to your DMs.

Come make some art with us this autumn. All sponsored by the Cultural Office of Tampere City and offered under the community art programme of @tampereinterculturalart taken in Hervanta by @zeykaynar

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a month ago

This month at Konepaja Spoken Word ✨

Organised by Helsinki Poetry Connection ry @hpc_ry and produced by @vinskivalos , Konepaja Spoken Word is an English-language open stage and community that Catalysti @catalysti_finland is happy to support through our ongoing collaboration.

This edition brought together around 100–150 people and more than ten performers, from experienced spoken-word artists to people taking the stage for the first time. What stood out was the genuinely intergenerational audience and the supportive atmosphere around experimentation, self-expression and vulnerability.

The format is simple and welcoming: each evening has an optional thematic prompt, performances can take different forms and languages, and participation is free whether you want to perform or simply come and listen.

This month’s theme, “Settings / Environments,” was particularly fitting as KSW recently moved to its new home at @tahtisalit , creating more room for this growing community to gather. And after the last poem, Jean-Philippe Payette @jeanphilippepayette kept the evening going with music for the afters. 🎶

Follow Helsinki Poetry Connection ry @hpc_ry for upcoming events and open-stage opportunities, or subscribe to the Catalysti @catalysti_finland newsletter 💌

#SpokenWord #Poetry #hpcry #PerformingArts #catalystifinland taken in Kulttuuri- ja tapahtumatila Tähti by @zeykaynar

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a month ago

For the past six years, much of my professional life has revolved around cultural project management, partnerships, communications and advisory work. I’ve had the chance to build programmes, work across institutions and countries, develop partnerships, and support some very meaningful projects and teams.

I’ll continue some of this work in an advisory capacity with the teams I already work with. But lately, I’ve also been thinking about where I want to put my creative energy next 🍁 And, perhaps unsurprisingly, I keep finding myself longing for illustration and book-making 📖

As agile as I have been in contemporary art, my roots are in visual language & communication, and art in book format has always been particularly dear to me: So, for the coming months and until summer 2027, I want to make more room for this part of my practice again. Therefore, I’m opening up a few slots for collaborations around book and publication design, art books, catalogues and printed matter, illustration for artistic, academic and scientific texts, visual concepts and art direction.

📣 I’d especially love to collaborate with artists, musicians, writers, researchers, literary professionals and cultural organisations—As I’m refreshing and expanding this side of my portfolio, I’m open to both paid commissions (3) and a small number of barter/collaborative projects (2) where there is a good creative match.

So, if you have a manuscript, research project, album, exhibition, publication or an idea looking for its visual form—I’d love to hear from you. Send in your inquiries over DM 📥 Let’s start talking September 15th onwards.

And if someone in your circles is looking for this kind of collaborator, feel free to tag them down there for creating engagement and some algorithm action 🌿

#BookDesign #EditorialDesign #ArtBooks #Illustration #ArtDirection taken in Helsinki, Finland by @zeykaynar

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a month ago

At the opening of The Art of Small 2026, we gathered inside a semi-fictional home @myymala2 , where artworks by 27 artists lived across our living room, kitchenette and bedroom. For one evening, the gallery became a house party chez the curators’—filled with artists, friends, visitors, conversations, and encounters around contemporary art.

A special thank you to @vintageverstas, whose carefully selected vintage furniture helped us set the scene and turn the white walls of Myymälä2 into the temporary home we had imagined.

During Night of the Arts, we gathered around the kitchen table for Emotion Cookies Tasting by @kitchen_testimonies , where taste became a way of talking about emotions, care and the experiences we carry beneath the surface.

And before Helsinki Design Week activities took over the city, we gathered once more chez the curator’s—this time in the living room, slowing things down with a liquid DnB listening set by @uel.dnb / Souled Out and spending another evening simply being together with the artworks.

On 29 August, we closed the exhibition—but hopefully not the conversations that began inside it.

And, of course, thank you to all of our artists, collectors, collaborators, partners and everyone working behind the scenes who trusted this slightly unusual idea of turning a gallery into a home and seeing what kinds of encounters might happen there.

The exhibition may be over, but #LearnSmall continues. We hope the questions, stories and knowledge gathered through this edition will keep opening conversations about how each of us can participate in and support contemporary art.

Thank you for visiting our home.
See you at the next gathering. ❤️

📸 @sjorshoogerdijk

#theartofsmall
#nykytaide
#Taidenäyttely taken in Myymälä2 by @zeykaynar

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a month ago

Little sparks in a grand design 🌻🌊✨ taken in Finland by @zeykaynar

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3 months ago

What if an artwork became the most memorable gift you ever gave?

When Anna and Luke visited The Art of Small, they weren’t looking for something for themselves—they were searching for a gift for a friend.

The exhibition’s accessible prices and intimate format encouraged them to spend time exploring dozens of artworks until they found one that simply felt right.

It became the first original artwork they had ever given as a gift.

“It makes a great gift. We’ll most likely do it again.”

Their story reminds us that collecting doesn’t always begin with ourselves. Sometimes art becomes a way of celebrating someone else.

What was the first artwork you ever bought—or received? Share stories down in the comments with us.

Artwork: Bed Étude for SAPP I (2018–2020), an acrylic and oil painting on A5 aquarelle paper by @zeykaynar .

The AoS 2026 is a project part of @catalysti_finland ‘s KUVI-supported program and @tampereinterculturalart is supporting communications operations this year. Exhibition opens for public on 13th August @myymala2 and @helsinkidesignweek is the communication partner for the exhibition.

#homeasgallery #theartofsmall #nykytaide #taidekeräily #taidekeräilijä taken in Helsinki, Finland by @zeykaynar

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3 months ago

I hope you can recover from whatever has happened to you for the last 7 years ❤️ Get well soon love, happy anniversary ✨ taken in Everywhere by @zeykaynar

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3 months ago