Anne-Karin Furunes’ new commissioned work for the University of Helsinki, featuring the earliest Finnish women academics, was revealed on 28 March 2022. The subjects of her three artworks for the university’s main building are Tekla Hultin, Emma Irene Åström and Karolina Eskelin.
“It’s wonderful that specifically these women got to be the subjects of the work. Archives contain a lot of information on them, but now the general public and the University community also have the chance to see what the women involved in the masculine university world of the past were like,” Furunes says. Her artistic practice often focuses on forgotten, silenced or marginalized histories and people, which she brings to light with her unique perforation technique.
Eskelin was Finland’s first female holder of a doctoral degree. She defended her doctoral thesis in medicine in 1896 and had an impressive career as a doctor. Hultin was the second female doctoral graduate in Finland, with history as her field. She defended her doctoral thesis a little after Eskelin, establishing a career as a feminist and politician. Åström was the first woman in Finland to receive a master’s degree, in 1882. Her field was philosophy.