Elina Johanna Ahonen: Havupalat – Character Illustrations from a Children’s Poetry Collection

The Havupalat exhibition is a large pop-up card that brings a touch of forest greenery into the winter city through its charming illustrated characters. The characters invite busy city dwellers to stop and take a closer look at urban nature, while encouraging everyone to get out into the woods and romp around in the forest.

Elina Johanna Ahonen’s works are based on the children’s poetry collection Havupalat, published in autumn 2026 (Rantala & Ahonen, Kumma Publishing). This delightful children’s poetry collection explores the forest through the seasons, reveals the secrets of spruces, and features Karri the spruce bark beetle’s spirited defence of his love of munching on the trees.

The Luonnos-ikkuna exhibition features six different spruces from the poetry collection: the weeping spruce, the witch’s broom spruce, the red-tipped spruce, the mound-forming spruce, the bird’s-nest spruce and the flat-top spruce. Alongside Karri, the book’s narrator, visitors can meet his friend Merri the Forest Microbe and other woodland inhabitants. The exhibition also includes a poem by Heli Rantala, presented across three text panels.

Elina Johanna Ahonen is a Tampere-based visual storyteller inspired by the scent of the forest, crafts, and the liminal space between reality and imagination. She holds a Master of Arts degree from Aalto University and works as a graphic designer and illustrator. She currently works as a freelancer, focusing primarily on children’s picture books.

The artist would like to thank FOT ry (the Finnish Association of Freelance Graphic Designers) for supporting the exhibition.

5.11.2026–1.2.2027
Elina Johanna Ahonen: Havupalat –Character Illustrations from a Children’s Poetry Collection
Exhibition at Luonnos-ikkuna
24/7 open display window inYmpyrätalo, Hakaniemi
Siltasaarenkatu 18-20, Helsinki