Rita Vaali

In her MA graduate collection of woven home textiles,Rita Vaaliexploresmökki—the Finnish summer cottage—as a kind of assemblage composed of nostalgia, traditional Finnish cottage culture, and memories of her family’s business running a cottage village from the 1970s until the 2000s. Vaali was inspired by the distinct visual language of traditional summer cottages, which tend to accumulate objects and memorabilia over time and across generations. Through her work, she also investigates the memories and layers of meaning embedded in a specific place. The background research of the cottage assemblage inspired Vaali’s collection of woven home textiles through colour, texture, and surface pattern design. Elements from the cottage environment — such as wood wall panelling, crocheted lace decorations, and the lake’s undulating surface — were translated into the weave structures and textures of the fabrics. The colours draw from the sun-tanned yellow pine, the saturated reds and blues of utilitarian plastics, and earthy hues.