Pavel Rotts: Climbing a memory on the facade of Forum Box 7.8.–27.9.2026
Many places in Helsinki still bear traces of the Second World War. Some have become recognised memorials, marked with plaques that preserve the memory of the bombings, while others remain almost invisible—small craters, cracks and scars on the granite and brick surfaces of the city. They have become part of Helsinki’s everyday landscape, often passed by without notice.
For artist Pavel Rotts, these traces resonate on a personal level. As an Ingrian born in Russia and living in Finland, Rotts explores the complex and painful entanglements between the two countries. During the Second World War, his grandfathers found themselves on opposite sides of the border: one witnessed the Soviet bombardment of Finland, while the other survived Finnish air raids in Petrozavodsk. This inherited proximity to conflict experienced through different narratives and family memories forms an important backdrop to the artist’s ongoing investigation of trauma, remembrance, and the acts of repair “— literal and symbolic.
Since 2018, Rotts has been documenting traces of wartime destruction through a method he calls tangible understanding. Taking casts directly from damaged walls, he creates resin sculptures that reproduce the missing fragments of buildings. Installed on the façade of Forum Box, these sculptures form a public climbing wall composed entirely of impressions taken from Helsinki’s war-damaged architecture.
In Climbing a Memory, climbing is both a physical action and a way of thinking. The bomb craters become hooks for memory, allowing the body to establish a direct connection with the city’s past. Through touch and balance, the work develops what Rotts calls “tangible understanding”— an embodied way of engaging with places marked by violence.
Throughout the exhibition, the climbing wall is activated through a series of public climbing events.
The exhibition is kindly supported by the Kone Foundation and Oskar Öflunds Stiftelse.
Producer: Jaana Denisova-Laulajainen
Technical assistance: Andreas Behn-Eschenburg
Exhibition partners: Wienerberger Oy, Material shop, Composite EE
Pavel Rotts (b. 1982, Petroskoi) is an Ingrian multidisciplinary artist based in Helsinki since 2015. His practice spans installation, performance, moving image, sound, and artistic research, engaging with histories of displacement, political violence, collective memory, and his own identity. Rotts holds an MFA from the University of the Arts Helsinki, presents work internationally, and is part of the artist duo SAHSAPASHA. He is also active in artist-led cultural initiatives and anti-war activism.
His work has been shown in solo exhibitions such as Climbing a Memory (Narva Museum, 2024) and Leave No Trace (Helsinki, 2021), and as part of SAHSAPASHA in venues across Europe, including the New Institute (Rotterdam, Netherlands) and Paradise Works (Manchester, UK). Rotts has participated in numerous group exhibitions and residencies throughout Finland and Europe, including the Joensuu Biennale MITÄ, Mänttä Art Festival (Finland), Narva Art Residency (Estonia), Pikene på Broen (Norway), and The Mirror Institution (Sweden). He has received multiple grants and awards, including the Finnish Cultural Foundation Artist Grant (2024), the William Thuring Award (2025), and project grants from the KONE Foundation and Oskar Öflund Foundation. Alongside his artistic practice, Pavel co-founded the anti-war initiative NO PUTIN NO, the KINO Club Helsinki, and the Shelter Festival.
Photo: Marko Marin