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Collaboration

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Annantalo is home to many art and cultural activities for children and young people in the city of Helsinki. Annantalo cooperates with daycare centres, basic education, higher education institutions, art schools and art institutions. Annantalo is active in various networks and as a partner of art professionals, art associations and art organisations to organise arts education and events, as well as with projects. Annantalo coordinates the Culture Kids activities aimed at all children in Helsinki. 


Current news on collaboration

Call for partners 2025-2026: Annantalo Arts Centre is seeking partners to supplement its art education portfolio

Partner application is open 1–30 November 2024.

We are seeking partners to supplement our art education portfolio, as our art education classes have room for more activities than what we can provide on our own. Submit your suggestion and join us in providing group activities for our target groups in summer 2025 or the 2025–2026 school year.

​​​​​​​Annantalo is an arts centre for children, young adults and families, right in the Helsinki city centre. Our eleven classrooms provide an environment for making art professionally. Annantalo provides art education for groups.

We are seeking partners that share our principles in art education: professionalism, focus on art and children, accessibility, and equality.

You can suggest activities for summer 2025 (weeks 23–31) or the 2025–2026 term (weeks 34–50 and 3–20). Activities may also take place during school holidays, which are on weeks 42 and 8. Classroom attendance limits vary. Currently, our largest classroom accommodates 20 pupils.

For our partners, Annantalo provides:

  • An inspirational facility in the arts centre, which is easily accessed by public transport
  • Extensive opening hours: During the school year, we are open on Mon–Fri from 8 am to 8 pm, and in summer, on Mon–Fri from 8 am to 5 pm
  • The subsidised price to use an art classroom is €20/h (incl. VAT 25.5%).
  • Annantalo’s exhibitions, the surrounding yard and other common facilities that support education
  • Cafeteria, cleaning and lobby services
  • Access to our office, break rooms and changing rooms
  • Limited storage space for materials and equipment. Storage may not be located next to your classroom.

Partners will be required to:

  • Manage and organize our own activities, such as marketing, enrolment and teaching arrangements, customer relations, staff and financial management.
  • Follow the usage instructions and occupancy limits of the classrooms.
  • Strive for accessibility and equality in line with the recommendations of the More Accessible Hobbies Label (Saavutettavampi harrastus). See the website of The Association of Finnish Children’s Cultural Centers in Finnish for more information.
  • Have a liability insurance.
  • Carry out a criminal background check of their art teachers and other personnel who encounter children and young people.
  • Comply with an applicable collective agreement.
  • Enroll the art teachers of the activities for an orientation session at Annantalo.

Annantalo will select its partners along the following criteria:

  • The operators meet the abovementioned principles and requirements.
  • The partner’s proposal fits Annantalo’s education portfolio.
  • The operator provides arts education content that they must demonstrate a need for in Helsinki, such as in terms of teaching language, arts discipline or particular target group..

We will organise three open events to visit the Annantalo premises and ask questions:

  • Thursday 21.11. at 13.30–14.30,
  • Friday 22.11. at 16–17 and
  • Monday 25.11. at 8–9.

Just come to the information desk in the entrance hall of the Annantalo. 

Arts education partner application is open during 1–30 November 2024. Open the form below. The link will take you to Webropol application form.

Contact

Team Leader Eeva Mussaari, eeva.mussaari(at)hel.fi, +358 (0)40 334 1078



Culture Kids

Every child born in Helsinki in 2020 or later is invited to become a culture kid. Culture kids receive two event invitations a year until the child starts school. The cultural sponsor is determined by the child's year of birth. More than 30 art and cultural actors are involved. The events are planned to suit the child's developmental stage and to support the well-being of the whole family. The events are free of charge. 

Learn more and sign up. The link takes you to the Culture Kids website. 

Contacts

Cultural Producer Heidi Valjus, heidi.valjus (at)hel.fi, +358 (0)40  358 1781

A girl's face that looks like Shakespeare and below Shakespeare's chest​



Älyvapaat – Annantalo volunteer group

A group of senior volunteers operates at Annantalo, who plan a thematic art workshop day once a year. The event is aimed at families with children. The aim of the event is to support arts education in homes and to channel the tacit knowledge of people who have done their life's work in the field of art and education into active arts education activities. 

Volunteers are expected to be able to become excited and be willing to work in a group according to common arts education goals. 

Become a volunteer and contact Annantalo's Älyvapaat contact person, Cultural Producer Harri Piispa. 

If you are interested now or will be in the future in volunteering for the City of Helsinki, subscribe to the newsletter. In the newsletter, you will find up-to-date information about volunteer training, lectures, events and assignments. The newsletter is published about 4–5 times a year. 

Sign up for the volunteer newsletter. The link will take you to the Gruppo form of the City of Helsinki's volunteer work. The page is in Finnish.

Contact 

Cultural Producer Harri Piispanen, harri.piispanen (at)hel.fi, +358 (0)40 121 6753  


University cooperation and internships at Annantalo

Higher education institutions and universities have the opportunity to carry out their teaching in the premises of Annantalo, and we are happy to enter into partnerships with art pedagogical training programmes. In arts education, we cooperate with Aalto University's arts education, the Sibelius Academy's Global Music, the Theatre Academy's dance and theatre pedagogy, and the University of Helsinki's early childhood teacher training programmes, for example. 

Annantalo regularly serves as an internship and teaching internship site, as well as a thesis implementation site for students studying to become artists, cultural producers and art teachers, for example. Vocational institutions' performance technology and visual communication students have completed internships of different lengths at Annantalo. The internships are generally unpaid. It is always worth inquiring about internships, even if the places are limited. 

Annantalo welcomes initiatives for research projects in the fields of children's and youth art, as well as art pedagogy.  

Contacts

Senior Planning Officer for Arts Education Susanna Metsälä, susanna.metsala (at)hel.fi, +358 (0)40 631 8144  


Come implement arts education and events in Annantalo

Annantalo develops long-term facility rental and cooperation partnerships with parties involved in art, arts education and arts training for children and young people. The aim is to complement Annantalo's arts teaching and event offering in arts that Annantalo does not offer as its own production, in minority languages or for new target groups, for example.  

In the 2024–2025 school year, the Annantalo premises will host: 

Contacts

Contacts for arts education and teaching: 
Senior Planning Officer for Arts Education Susanna Metsälä, susanna.metsala (at)hel.fi, +358 (0)40 631 8144  

Contacts for events: 
Team leader Mirka Nokka, mirka.nokka (at)hel.fi, +358 (0)40 662 3795 

Two children and an adult in the background doing art activities in Annantalo's yard during summer​



Small Size Network

Artistic International Association Small Size forms a network of around 100 theatres, art institutions and communities in 37 countries and on four continents. The network supports and develops performing arts for children under school age. The network also defends young children's right to arts and culture. Annantalo producer Katariina Metsälampi has been the chair of the Small Size Network since 2016. 

Annantalo's Small Size activities include art courses for small children, Art Clinic activities and family workshops and events. Annantalo is involved in the Itu lastenteatterihautomo (children's theatre incubator). It supports the creation of high-quality new children's performances in Finland. Every year at the end of January, we organise a joint, three-day Small Size Days event for the network. 

Learn more about the Small Size Network. The link will take you to the English-language Small Size Network page. 

Contacts

Cultural Producer Katariina Metsälampi, katariina.metsalampi (at)hel.fi., +358 (0)50 529 3672  


Association of Finnish Children's Cultural Centers

The Association of Finnish Children's Cultural Centres is a national central organisation of children's cultural operators that promotes awareness of the children's culture sector in Finland and the sector's activities. The association works to ensure that every child and young person has an equal opportunity to participate in high-quality art and cultural activities, both as an author and as an experiencer. Among other things, the Association of Finnish Children's Cultural Centres coordinates the Art Testers activities for 8th graders. The link will take you to the Art Testers website. 

Since 2003, Annantalo has been involved in the national Taikalamppu cooperation that preceded the association and has been a member of the association since its establishment in 2015. Annantalo is represented on the Association Board. 

The Association of Finnish Children's Cultural Centers has published the Quality Manual for Children's Arts and Culture (2016), which serves as a guideline for children's cultural centres in the implementation of high-quality children's and young people's arts and culture. The quality manual is free to download and use.  

Download the Quality Manual for Children's Arts and Culture. The link leads to a PDF document. 
 
Read more about the The Association of Finnish Children's Cultural Centers at lastenkulttuuri.fi. The link will take you to the association's website.

Logo of Association of Finnish Children's Cultural Centers​