The artwork in Luonnos-ikkuna explores the layered and elusive nature of memories as a mirage-like phenomenon: a psychophysical accumulation of sensations, perceptions, and associations. Text: Iida Pohjolainen Sediments gather in the box of memories: a kaleidoscopic collection of paper tickets, leaflets, colourful wrappers, wristbands, stones, and seashells. The box is a form of insurance. It preserves physical symbols of lived experiences, talismans that one can only hope will bring memories back to life when held and turned over in one’s hands. Yet the talismans inside the memory box are never actually touched. New layers of sediment keep accumulating on top of the objects, shells become mixed, stones lose their origins, and film curls up into a roll in the dark. The true atlas of memories weaves itself beyond our reach. Scents, sounds, visual stimuli, and the intersecting associations they create form a collage in the hidden corners of the mind. It is not a representation of reality, but a psychophysical experience of an imagined world, a mirage of reality. A mirage that appears anywhere, anytime: on street corners when asphalt carries the scent of rain, in a metro tunnel where its glowing warmth radiates into the darkness and smells of sweet, freshly baked bread, on paving stones where a dried oak leaf scratches across the surface with a sound that is both audible and heartbreaking. ‿‿‿‿ A mirage is a natural phenomenon created when air masses of different temperatures gather close to the ground. The way light bends creates the mirage. Fata morgana is a rare type of mirage that makes enormous cruise ships appear to float above the horizon like the lightest of clouds. The name is borrowed from Morgan le Fay, a powerful enchantress from the legends of King Arthur. Last autumn, I travelled to Paris and became inspired by its multilayered nature. In the artwork created for Luonnos-ikkuna, I explore how the mirages of Paris can be represented in a physical form. The work depicts the layered and elusive nature of memories as a mirage-like constellation of an endless strip of film, simultaneously intensely physical and weightlessly immaterial. Fata morgana, an enchantment that never broke. Iida Pohjolainen is a graphic designer and illustrator with a Master of Arts degree from Aalto University. During the day, she works at a design agency, and in the evenings she focuses on freelance projects ranging from book cover design to board game illustration. In her work as a graphic designer, she is particularly interested in exploring how human psychophysical tendencies influence design: how they shape design decisions and how they can either be taken into consideration or consciously altered. She is inspired by witches, the mysterious atmosphere of the Middle Ages, and small French pastries. 6.8.–2.11.2026Iida Pohjolainen: Fata Morgana, Mirages from ParisLuonnos-ikkuna, display window in Ympyrätalo, HakaniemiSiltasaarenkatu 18-20, Helsinki