100,000 kilometres of inspiration: when the journey through Europe becomes part of the art
Fourteen international artists are making not only their destinations but also the routes towards them part of their work. On Friday, the exhibition “COLLECTIVE ROUTES – 100000KM OF INSPIRATION” opens in Oulu.
The work does not begin only at the destination
An artist gets on a train.
Normally, the journey would simply be the way to the place where the actual work begins later. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections takes a different approach. Here, the artistic process begins with departure itself.
What changes outside the window? Who might you speak to on a station platform? What happens when the space between two cities is not crossed by a short flight but by a long journey of trains, ferries, stations and landscapes?
The European project Tiny Spaces Deep Connections is exploring more sustainable models for international artist residencies. Participants travel slowly and do not fly. The journey itself is explicitly part of the creative process. Along the way, artists visit cultural spaces, meet people and collect impressions before they have even arrived at their residency.
Europe lies between two points
This is about more than reducing the emissions caused by travel.
Slow travellers do not skip the distance between two cities. They watch landscapes change. Languages change. Trains stop in places that were never intended as destinations. On a ferry there is time to watch the water, make a drawing or start a conversation with another passenger.
Perhaps this creates something that is easily lost when movement must be as fast as possible: Europe stops being a sequence of destinations and becomes the space between them.
And that space can itself become material for art.
In 2026, the project’s residencies take place in Athens, Potsdam and Oulu. The workspaces reflect the same idea: small or repurposed spaces are used, and artists are encouraged to work closely with each location and its surroundings.
Oulu gathers the routes
On Friday, 21 August, many of these experiences come together in Oulu. At 5 p.m., “COLLECTIVE ROUTES – 100000KM OF INSPIRATION” opens there, presenting work by 14 international artists. The exhibition is shown at Itu Artlab and The Red House until 29 August.
Oulu is a European Capital of Culture in 2026. At the same time, the Tiny Spaces Deep Connections symposium takes place on 21 and 22 August. Artists, researchers and cultural practitioners will discuss, among other things, how trains, stations and other spaces of movement can themselves become places for artistic research. Part of Saturday’s programme even takes place aboard a ship.
The title “100000KM OF INSPIRATION” turns a number normally used simply to describe distance into something else. The kilometres do not disappear between the starting point and the destination. They become part of the story.
Looking along the way
Perhaps that is the project’s most interesting idea.
Travel does not have to mean arriving somewhere as quickly as possible. Those who allow themselves time can discover what lies between the familiar points on a map: people, landscapes, languages, stations, harbours and unexpected encounters.
For these artists, the journey is therefore not an interruption to their work.
It is part of it.
And sometimes it is worth looking not only at the destination, but at what is happening along the way.