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Wille Valkeisenmäki
CV

WorkWebs Art Forum

A wall where strangers write back

Concept, spatial design and identity for a year-long art forum in Lapinlahti, Helsinki: a hanging wall of laser-cut panels where visitors left prompts, letters and replies for each other.

Concept & spatial designer, in a design team, 2023. Spatial, Brand, Interaction.

On an off-white wall stage: a photo of the installation, rows of brown laser-cut panels hung on jute rope in a wooden frame, beside a card with the Webs wordmark and its spidery mark.

Webs Art Forum ran for a year at Venetsia-talo in Lapinlahti, Helsinki, as a place for artists, designers and neighbours to swap ideas. I worked on the concept, the installation and the identity with a small design team.

The installation works like a slow message board. You pick a prompt, write a letter or a sticky note and drop it in a box. Each box has its own key, so you can borrow it, read what others wrote and keep the letters meant for you. If you need advice or someone to work with, you write your own prompt for the leftmost box.

Every piece is laser-cut and hangs from jute rope, so the wall could be re-hung, extended or moved without rebuilding it. The engraving mixes tree rings with spider webs, for the two ideas in the name: growing over time, and the threads between people.

The identity has the same two sides. A sharp serif wordmark sits next to a hand-drawn mark somewhere between a spider and a spark. On the instruction cards those two do all the work, so the printed pieces look like they belong with the wood.

The installation in a white room: a wooden frame holding rows of brown laser-cut panels on jute rope, with engraved panels, framed prompt cards, small lockable letterboxes and a toolbox.

  1. Letters behind a key

    The boxes lock on purpose. Locking a letter away makes writing to a stranger feel private, and borrowing a key to read the replies turns it into a small ritual.

The wall: engraved panels, prompt frames, lockable letterboxes and a toolbox, all hung on jute rope.
Close-up of engraved panels hanging from a wooden pole on knotted jute rope; the engraving overlays tree-ring circles with spider-web lines in copper on dark brown.
Tree rings and spider webs, engraved into every panel.
Laser-cut toolbox on the wall holding pens, sticky notes and blank prompt cards, with tab-and-slot joints visible on its sides.
The toolbox: pens, sticky notes and blank letter and prompt cards.
Instruction card behind clear acrylic in a brown frame, with the WEBS wordmark and spider mark on the left, three numbered steps on the right, and a laser-cut key hanging beside it.

  1. Rules next to the object

    The key hangs beside the step that explains it. People learn the rule and find the thing it refers to in the same glance.

Three steps to use the wall, with the key hanging next to them.
The Webs identity on light grey: a vertical WEBS wordmark in a high-contrast serif beside a black hand-drawn mark with thin radiating legs above a horizontal wordmark.
Identity: a serif wordmark and a hand-drawn mark.