KuvA Research Club in September 2026

September 24, 2026, at 4-6 pm
At Lindqvist Wing, room K-246, Mylly main building, Sörnäisten rantatie 19, Helsinki
Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki

Concrete transitions, the built environment, and material flows in contemporary art
Tom Ackers

Abstract:

For the KuvA Research Club, I’ll talk about two areas of work. I’ll go into some of my recent research into cement and concrete; and then I’ll give an overview of the postdoc work that I’m just getting started with, about material flows in contemporary art and in the Mylly building at KuvA.

Cement and concrete are ancient materials, and modern Portland cement has proven foundational for modern industrialisation and the international capitalist economy. At the same time, concrete also provides many socially essential use-values: not least, the delivery of drinking water and sanitation infrastructures into the world’s cities. The environmental costs of these materials, however, are extreme. I’ll outline the major harms, and point to the scale of wasteful construction and demolition globally. I’ll outline some of the more sustainable materials and processes that could partly replace this homogeneous material globally.

Turning to contemporary art, the aim of my postdoc research at KuvA is to examine art as a material site of production and consumption. In contemporary art, ecological transition should I think be understood (at least in part) as a sectoral task to be undertaken (primarily) by the commercial enterprises and public institutions of art, as well as also by artists themselves. How have the nature and the scale of material consumption in art evolved over the last century? What kinds of resource extraction and material consumption permit, and have permitted, art to be produced, displayed and circulated in the world at large? Upon what material basis does the world of contemporary art now sit? I’m looking to develop a richly descriptive, historical and theoretical analysis of art’s materiality, its share of responsibility for environmental burdens, and possible alternative, more sustainable, models for art.

I’ll flesh out some of those aims a little, and talk about one specific aspect of this work: an “audit” of the various art materials, techniques, infrastructures and processes that we currently engage with and reproduce at KuvA.

Bio:

Tom Ackers trained first in art, then philosophy. He was a studio fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program, and completed a PhD in the Department of Comparative Literature at New York University. While he was previously “an artist who researches”, he is now just a researcher—and his research focuses on environmental philosophy, global environmental history, and the political economy of decarbonising the built environment. He co-authored a recent in-depth study for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation about the environmental and social impacts of cement and concrete, and about feasible alternative construction materials and practices for securing basic needs within planetary boundaries. As part of his current postdoctoral research at Uniarts he has convened an interdisciplinary Material Studies Working Group at KuvA, to explore the environmental and social impacts of art materials, infrastructures and processes.