Kalliola_teos1

The first of Kalliola's paired teos works from her 2024 MI-LAB residency, this print represents an early stage in a comparative study undertaken during the Basic Training Program A in Echizen. Mokuhanga prints produced under MI-LAB instruction generally use modest sheet sizes appropriate to the eight-week training schedule, with carving executed on shina plywood rather than the traditional yamazakura cherry favored by Edo-period ukiyo-e workshops. The water-based pigments — typically gansai or sumi — are bound with rice-starch nori and worked into dampened washi with a baren wrapped in bamboo sheath. These technical parameters distinguish contemporary mokuhanga from the commercial nishiki-e publishing system of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries while preserving its core material logic. Kalliola's work belongs to the contemporary international mokuhanga movement that has expanded through institutional residencies such as MI-LAB, the Nagasawa Art Park program, and CFA Kyoto. Finnish artists have been consistent participants since the early 2010s, contributing to the growing presence of Nordic practitioners in the field.