How Arno Rafael Minkkinen and Iittala Are Creating a Conversation with the Past
In an exclusive interview, Hypebeast caught up with the photographer on his latest collaboration celebrating the iconic Aalto vase.
On the 90th anniversary of the archetypal Aalto vase, Iittala invites a collective of contemporary artists to reinterpret the icon through their craft. Turning the object into a source of inspiration, The Spirit of Aalto aims to bring its design to new audiences in art and design while celebrating its longstanding legacy.
From its inception, when Alvar Aalto presented the vase at a design competition, to the various limited-edition releases with master artisans, collaboration lands at the core of the Aalto vase’s history. By welcoming artists, photographers and illustrators, the new creative series continues to echo the same principle that design lives on through the people who interact with it.
Among those putting their perspective on the Aalto vase is acclaimed Finnish photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen. For over five decades, he has crafted striking images that capture the human relationship with nature without assistants or digital alteration, mentioning that, “There’s also something extraordinary about how reality behaves. It creates combinations, reflections, and moments that are far more imaginative than anything we might consciously design.”
Producing work that exists in the most raw and truest sense of art, his photographs have gone on to feature in 100 solo exhibitions and nearly 200 group shows across the US, Europe and further afield. In this collaboration, Minkkinen unearths some of his most famous pictures and recreates the featured forms with the Aalto vase in frame.
“What I find so compelling in Arno’s work is how naturally he navigates tension,” reflects Iittala Creative Director, Janni Vepsäläinen. “It mirrors the essence of the Alvar Aalto vase; a form that is both structured and free, timeless yet always evolving. That shared sensitivity to contrast is what makes this collaboration feel so meaningful and true.”
As well as exploring the same themes as Iittala in his work, this particular collaboration stands out as a shared expression of Finnish design. Vepsäläinen adds, “We don’t try to overstate things. Instead, we allow materials, forms, and moments to speak for themselves. That sensitivity comes from living in a place where contrasts are so strong: the darkness of winter, the brightness of summer, stillness and movement. There is this constant dialogue between opposites and Arno captures that balance so intuitively.”
In an exclusive interview below, Hypebeast sat down with Arno Rafael Minkkinen to discuss how he adapted his practice to capture the Aalto vase for its 90th anniversary.
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Hypebeast: Tell us a bit about how you approached The Spirit of Aalto project.
Arno Rafael Minikkinen: I approached it with a sense of openness, allowing the process to unfold rather than trying to define it too quickly. That feeling shaped everything. I wanted to create something that was new, but never at the expense of the integrity of his design.
Early on, I took a very physical and almost literary approach. I remember placing my finger on the surface of the vase and tracing its outline, moving along its form, even with my eyes closed. That gesture became more than just an exercise; it revealed something fundamental about the object. Once you enter that line, it never ends. There are no corners, no interruptions, no forced decisions about direction. You simply trust the path. From that point, the project became less about photographing an object and more about responding to a philosophy embedded in its form.
How did you reimagine the timelessness of the Aalto vase?
The idea of timelessness came through the experience of the vase itself. That same gesture of tracing its form led me to think of it as something like a never-ending river: continuous, fluid, and without a clear beginning or end. I became interested in working with elements that share that same sense of flow, especially water. At one point, I placed the vase into a pool and filled it so that it began to interact with the surface, creating a kind of ribbon-like movement around it.
More broadly, the goal was not to situate the images in a specific time, but to remove them from time altogether. By focusing on natural elements, continuous forms, and minimal intervention, the images can exist in a space where it’s unclear whether they were made yesterday or decades ago, much like the vase itself.
How did looking back at your past works give you a new perspective on their narratives?
Looking back at my earlier work in the context of this project opened up a completely new way of seeing it. It became about how images relate to one another. I started thinking in terms of pairings, almost like diptychs: how two photographs “shake hands,” how they communicate, and what each one gives or receives from the other.
This process made me more aware of the emotional and visual dialogue between images. Some combinations create a sense of mystery. Others are more physical or visceral, where you can almost feel the weight or texture of what’s being held or experienced. In revisiting the work this way, I realized the narrative doesn’t exist in a single image, it emerges in the space in between. That perspective gave me a deeper understanding of my own practice and also helped ground the new work within a larger continuum.
What themes of duality played a defining role in this project?
I often think in terms of opposing forces — order and disorder, strength and vulnerability, control and spontaneity. There’s a concept I’ve always returned to: when both order and disorder exist within the same work, that’s where art begins. In practice, I’m constantly searching for that tension. That small imbalance is important, it humanizes the image and keeps it from becoming static.
With the Aalto vase, the challenge is even greater because the object itself already feels so resolved, so complete. The question becomes: how do you introduce something new without diminishing that perfection? Duality becomes the way in by finding moments where contrast, spontaneity, or unexpected relationships can emerge while still honoring the object’s presence.
How can art help us to understand our relationship with time?
For me, the relationship to time in art often comes down to what is present in the image. When I work in natural environments — water, forests, or landscapes — I’m dealing with elements that existed long before us. In those moments, the work feels timeless, because there’s nothing in the frame that anchors it to a specific era.
As soon as you introduce something human-made, like architecture, structures, even shadows cast by something constructed, you begin to sense time more clearly. Those elements carry a history and a context. The presence or absence of those details can shift how we experience time within the image. Art allows us to move between those states. It can make time visible, or it can remove it altogether. Rather than illustrating time directly, it creates a space where we become aware of it, sometimes subtly, sometimes very directly, through what is included and what is left out.
What makes Finnish art and design unique from other creative scenes around the world?
What I find most distinctive about Finnish art and design is its sense of originality. The ideas often don’t feel like variations or reinterpretations. They begin from a fresh starting point. There’s an independence in the thinking that sets it apart.
At the same time, there’s a deeply rooted connection to nature that has always influenced Finnish artists. I experienced that early on through painters like Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Pekka Halonen, whose work left a strong impression on me as a child. When I later returned to Finland after spending my formative years in the US, that same atmosphere — the landscapes, the light, the quiet presence of nature — became central to my own work.
There’s also a certain romantic sensibility that runs through Finnish culture, balanced by a clarity and simplicity in design. That combination creates something unique: work that feels both emotionally grounded and conceptually fresh. It’s not about following trends, it’s about creating from a place that feels entirely its own.
Explore Arno Rafael Minkkinen’s photography series in the gallery above.
To find out more about Iittala’s The Spirit of Aalto series, head to its website now.
