Heini Aho‘s new kinetic work The Meditative Clock has been completed in the Finnish-Russian school in Helsinki. Aho’s work won a competition organized by the State Art Commission together with a Finnish-Russian school and Senate Properties. 

The Meditative Clock is a series of hourglass-like glass sculptures in which sand of different colors measures its own time. Instead of experiencing impatience or the ruthlessness of time, in Aho’s work the passage of time seems soothing. The placement of the work in a learning environment concretizes the significance of the school path and the stages of human life from preschool to adulthood. The sand flowing inside the sculptures reminds us that learning is a lifelong process in which every grain of knowledge increases our understanding of the world.

Photo: Jussi Virkkumaa / State Art Commission