Inka Kivalo was born in Helsinki in 1956. Though initially she was a student of photography, but she felt disconnected from its practice and decided to devote herself to textiles, studying them at the Helsinki University of Art and Design, graduating in 1985. In parallel, she developed a pictorial practice that she consciously implements in her textile design. With this unique blend she managed to secure industrial positions such as designer for Marimekko, which she held from her days as a student until 1990. At Marimekko she produced textile installations as well as clothing collections.
On the basis of her talent and career experiences, she taught for several years at her alma mater, Helsinki University. Her courses at the experimental crafts laboratory included weaving, introduction to design and environmental planning. As a teacher, she bridged the divide between art and industry, underlining the importance of craftsmanship to students in her classes on industrial design. The beauty and pleasure of the handmade is a constant of her career.
Perhaps this explains why she mainly uses an 18th century weaving loom to produce her polymorphous creations. Colour in these works has a structural power, as Kivalo mainly creates from memory, with no template. She even produces her own tinted threads, literally meshing material and colour. As she says: ‘I became a textile artist, because textiles give colours a softer radiance, and make life more beautiful. Weaving is a practice that requires focus and patience, but it’s also about play and joy, as what’s most important is not the weaving itself but the vision. I am my own handwriting. I mirror myself, and that’s how I get into my work.’
Artistically, large-scale commissions showcasing her unique technical ability have punctuated her career, such as a textile panel entitled Red Madonna for the Finnish Ministry of Social and Medical Affairs in 1989, or a mural fresco for Järvenpää Church education centre the following year, religious tapestries for Lintuvaara and Espoo churches or decorative panels for a Helsinki retirement home, the Helsinki Institute in Stockholm.
Her main exhibitions and distinctions include: the 10th triennial of tapestry in Lodz, 2001; Fiberscapes, Finnish Embassy of Washington DC, 2002; Fiberscapes, Ottawa City Hall, 2003; Sustainable Design from Finland, Design Forum, Helsinki, 2013; Inka Kivalo – KUDOS, gobeliineja ja veistoksia, Galleria Katariina, Helsinki, 2014; Tree Textile Artists, Becker Gallery, Jyväskylä, 2017: Inka Kivalo – Personae, Gobelins and textile sculptures, Alvar AaltoMuseum, Jyväskylä; 2020.
In 2000, Kivalo was nominated as the Finnish Textile Artist of the Year by TEXO, an association of Finnish textile designers. In 2018, she received the Alvar Aalto Foundation’s Maire Gullichsen Prize. In 2019, she received the Fokus Borås Foundation Prize for Nordic textile.
