Cut From A New Cloth

Fiskars, Finland—an hour west of Helsinki—was a manufacturing village on the decline. Then a group of artists reinvented the community as a captivating creative hub.

- Gisela Williams

One night in the early 1990s, Ingmar Lindberg, an executive at the Fiskars metal tool company— famous for making scissors, knives, and gardening tools—was lying in bed, drifting off to sleep. But something kept nagging him. For months, Lindberg had been trying to puzzle out how to reinvigorate the small Finnish village where the company was founded in the 17th century. The town had thrived as an industrial and commercial centre for more than 300 years, but by the 1980s, after it became clear that the ironworks were too small to support a global business, Fiskars shifted the bulk of its operations to larger facilities elsewhere in Finland and in the Midwestern United States. As a result, many of the factories and homes sat empty and were falling apart.

That night, Lindberg had an epiphany. “I sat up in bed and told my wife I knew what to do,” he recalled. “I had to bring new people to Fiskars: designers and artists. So I made an offer to Helsinki’s creative community that they couldn’t refuse. I offered to rent space at a very affordable price. Once we had a group of about twenty people, I started to get calls from other artists, and it became easy.”

More than two decades on, the plan has succeeded beyond Lindberg’s wildest dreams. Approximately 600 people live in Fiskars Village, and among them are some of Finland’s most respected creative talents. They encompass world-class furniture-makers, contemporary glass-blowers, innovative jewellery designers, and groundbreaking artists, one of whom builds sculptures out of fabrics like silk and linen. The town is just over an hour’s drive west of Helsinki and makes for a lovely day trip from the capital. Travellers can make appointments for tours, check out exhibitions and studios, and buy pieces at the artists’ cooperative boutique.