Helsinki-based gallery P1tted Dates, run by gallerist Sakari Tervo, is the first gallery from Finland in 20 years to be accepted into the Liste Art Basel programme held alongside the art fair.
Pitted Dates presents a duo by Pamela Brandt and Elina Vainio, with a commissioned poem by Milka Luhtaniemi. Combining painting, sculpture, and poetry, the booth reflects an intergenerational, poetry-driven ethos. Brandt’s egg-tempera paintings shift between clarity and ambiguity, while Vainio’s beeswax reliefs evoke fragility and material sensitivity. Luhtaniemi’s spatial poem links the works, creating a quiet space of attentiveness and openness.
Elina Vainio (b. 1981) is a Finnish artist exploring the shadow zones of human-centered worldviews. Working with beeswax, pigment, and organic matter, she foregrounds fragility, permeability, and human–more-than-human interdependence. MFA, Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. Her works are held in major public collections.
Pamela Brandt (b. 1950) is a Finnish artist whose work resists categorization. Drawing from everyday observation, she develops an autonomous visual language shaped by associative and emotional insight. Educated at the Free Art School, Helsinki. Her works are held in major public and private collections.
Milka Luhtaniemi (b. 1992) is a poet, dramaturg, and multidisciplinary artist working between literature, visual art, and performance. Her sensorial, body-centered writing explores perception, emotion, and more-than-human interdependence, expanding language as lived experience. Studied at the University of the Arts Helsinki, Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Helsinki, and Freie Universität Berlin.
For Liste Art Basel 2026, 105 galleries from 36 countries are gathering at Messe Basel to present a diverse spectrum of distinctive contemporary art positions. This makes the current edition the most extensive in Liste’s history to date—featuring 41 galleries exhibiting for the first time.