Riikkamari Muhonen - director

The year 2025 has been incredibly busy and incredibly fun! It had so many highlights that it is absolutely impossible to name just one. Because I am quite an adventurous character, I must say that I probably hold the dearest memories of FinnAgora’s small projects that took place outside Hungary and gathered very enthusiastic audiences. 

 In Belgrade last March, almost one hundred people came to listen to our discussion events about language minorities in Finland. In May, Finland had the honor to be the first ever theme country at the SepsiBook book festival in the town of Sepsiszentgyörgy/Sfantu Gheorghe in Transylvania. Writers Sofi Oksanen and Timo Parvela who were the guests of honor at the festival got a very enthusiastic welcome from the local readers! And finally, a lecture about Finnish education organized at the university library in Iași in November gathered approximately one hundred interested listeners and sparked an active discussion about the topic. 

 In all these places it has been both a pleasure and an honor to meet so many enthusiastic friends of Finnish culture, I hope these encounters will continue also in 2026.

Nuutti Päällysaho - producer

My first year in Budapest has been full of unforgettable encounters and adventures. 

It is difficult to choose just one event out of so many. One exceptionally memorable event was the Heavy Lace exhibition, which was also my first exhibition production here in Budapest. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Nordic Museum of Romani Culture, and we found a wonderful venue for it at the Bura Gallery.

After many twists and turns, the artworks finally found their way to Budapest straight from the Berlin Biennale. We built the exhibition together with curator Katariina Lillqvist and exhibition designer Sebastian Derkert, who came to Budapest from Prague. 

We have stayed in touch and gotten to know each other over the year, and we still maintain contact. We hope to find joint projects in the future with both the Nordic Museum of Romani Culture and the Bura Gallery!

But now my focus is already on the Finn Filmnapok film festival, which we are organizing in February 2026. I can't wait for the program to be released!

 

Linn Svanberg, intern

The one event that stands out above the rest during my first fall in Budapest is undoubtedly the Inota light festival, which I visited my second week living in Hungary on a hot August night. 

The exhibition was held at a decommissioned thermal power plant, where various artists had installed enormous, hypnotic light works and sound installations both inside and outside of the power plant. One of these was Finnish artist Niko Tianen’s oeuvre Decoherence. It was unlike anything I had ever seen.

Getting home from Inota also became an unexpected lesson in public transport outside Budapest – and in the helpfulness of Hungarian people! As it turned out, no buses or trains were running from Inota that night. Fortunately, some friendly locals came to our rescue and offered my colleague and me a ride to the nearest train station.

Ilona Saarinen, intern

The whole autumn in Budapest has been a series of unforgettable moments and fun events, but if I had to choose a highlight, it would be Sanna Hukkanen's Finno-Ugric Comics Exhibition and her visit to Hungary!

The comic exhibition had a powerful and interesting topic. I learned new things about Finno-Ugric linguistic minorities and about how comics can be used as a tool for activism. My personal interest in comics was also rekindled during the project after many years. We organized an opening event and a movie night for the exhibition at the Space of Opportunity, and both events had a warm atmosphere and visitors who were interested in the topic.

During her visit, Hukkanen gave lectures at universities around Hungary, and I got to travel with Hukkanen and Riikkamari to the University of Szeged. I was exhausted that day, but my travel companions kept me laughing throughout the train journey. In Szeged, the staff of the university's Department of Finno-Ugric Languages gave us a very warm welcome and showed us around the city. The fish soup in Szeged was also my best food experience in Hungary so far!

 

Borbála Buzás - Finance- and administration officer

The highlight of 2025 for me was the Moomin-80 anniversary year and the Moomin Festival organized in its honor. I had already organized the first Moomin festival in 2014 as a volunteer at Skandináv Ház, so it was a great honor to be invited to collaborate with them again on the anniversary Moomin event—this time as part of the FinnAgora team.

 

To organize the event, we worked closely with Dóra Peregi from the Finnish Embassy and Dorina Maár from Skandináv Ház. The event was planned for the whole family, so together we created a program that would interest both children and adults—and we found the perfect venue for it in Óbuda: the Esernyős Café and the Szindbád event space. The event was a great success, and I can say that the audience of more than 300 people, the lecturers, and our entire team seemed all happy and satisfied with the event. I’m already looking forward to the next Moomin Festival!