The National Council for Design has awarded the 2007 State Prize for Design to Päivi Rintaniemi for her long and outstanding career as a ceramics designer and artist. Riitta Kaivosoja, Director General of the Ministry of Education, presented the award of €15,000 on 12 September 2008 in Helsinki.

The grounds for the prize by the National Council for Design:

Päivi Rintaniemi (born 1956) has carved out a significant career by her determined and impressive work as a designer. She has shown creative talent and competence both as a designer and as an entrepreneur. Her Seinäjoki-based company Amfora is at the very peak of Finnish design. All Päivi Rintaniemi’s works attest to her uncompromising need to produce high-quality objects for people.

The points of departure for Päivi Rintaniemi’s porcelain and wooden utility and decorative collections are clarity and timelessness. The collections skilfully combine aestheticism and functionality while putting the emphasis on high-quality, beautiful and durable design for both everyday use and for special occasions. The visual nature of the tableware collections and their ease of adaptation to various food cultures have brought her an enthusiastic following and international praise.

Rintaniemi's Amfora is a successful design production company that has opened doors for export in Europe and the Far East. It is a good example of internationalisation through unrelenting grass-roots enterprising. Working as a designer and entrepreneur on the international markets takes talent but most of all boldness and vision.

Päivi Rintaniemi’s utility articles are well designed but the technical innovations of the production process have also been crucial to their success. Through them manual work has been transferred to serial production without losing individuality and artistry. The development of the production technology, machinery and processes has been the work of Markku Rintaniemi. The fact that the production process is wholly domestic is also a significant factor in the global economy of today.

Päivi Rintaniemi graduated as a Master of Arts (Art and Design) from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 1987. She has worked extensively as a lecturer in object design in the Jurva College of Crafts and Design. She is a founding member of the Konsti industrial design group and a member of the Finnish Association of Designers, Ornamo. Rintaniemi has participated in many exhibitions both in Finland and abroad with her unique works, ceramic sculptures and reliefs. She holds many positions of trust – for example, in the Arts Council of Ostrobothnia – promoting the status of design in her home area.

The Arts Council of Finland has appointed to the post of Artist Professor translator Kersti Juva, architect Olavi Koponen and choreographer Kenneth Kvarnström. The five-year terms of the Artist Professors began 1 September 2008. 

The requirements for artist professorship dictate that on the basis of his/her previous activities the appointee can be regarded as a particularly skilled artist in his/her field. All in all, there are eleven artist professorships. 

Grounds for the appointments included the following:

Kersti Juva (born 1948) has during her career spanning over 35 years proved to be a versatile and talented translator of classic works of fiction from Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh through to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to Dickens and Laurence Stern's 18th century cornerstone of the modern art of novel writing, Tristram Shandy. In addition to classics, Juva has translated numerous contemporary novels, dozens of episodes of The Men from the Ministry radio comedy series and several plays. Continuous renewal is typical of Juva’s work as a translator. Depending on the original text, she can be delightful and innovative but also lyrical and sensitive when needed. Alongside her work as a translator, Juva has actively worked as a teacher and is a popular lecturer. Among the younger generation of Finnish translators, Juva is revered as a great inspiration and role model. 

The architect (SAFA) Olavi Koponen (born 1951) is a designer who works outside the Finnish mainstream of his profession. He has studied social sciences in Moscow and graduated as an architect from the Tampere University of Technology in 1993. He has been running his own design agency for over 20 years. Koponen’s works have been published in at least 24 countries and presented in the Venice Architecture Biennale and in Milan’s Triennale. Koponen mainly designs private homes and summer villas. He has retained his critical attitude towards construction processes, created an ecological architectural language that favours recycled materials and has managed to challenge the values of both the inhabitants and his own profession alike. 

Kenneth Kvarnström (born 1963) is one of the internationally most-renowned Finnish choreographers and he has significantly affected the development of Finnish contemporary dance since the 1990s. His choreographies combine physically and technically demanding movement expression with carefully planned visual expression. After managing the most important Nordic dance stage, Dansens Hus in Stockholm, during 2004-2007, Kvarnström has now returned to his work as a choreographer. Currently, he is also an artistic advisor to the Helsinki Festival. Kvarnström’s choreography no-no has become one of the few classics of Finnish contemporary dance. 

The Arts Council of Finland and state art councils will change their grant application procedure as of autumn 2008. The number of grants will be reduced but the sum to be allocated will remain the same. Instead of grant types set aside beforehand for different purposes, the councils will decide on the allocation of their grants for different purposes of use.

As of autumn 2008, artists and their working groups will apply for target grants and corporations for operational or special subsidies. The application time for annual grants for artists will remain unchanged (March).

Application times, too, will be harmonised. Target grants for artists and working groups for 2009 must be applied for by the end of September and operational and special subsidies for corporations for 2009 by the end of October.

Regardless of the new practice, the Arts Council of Finland will issue travel grants and artists-in-residence grants in the same way as before. The reform does not apply to annual grants for artists, support for drama literature or quality support for film productions. Grants and subsidies for writers and translators, public lending right grants for music, public lending right grants for illustrators and comic artists, and public display grants for visual artists are not included in the structural reform either. Their application times and forms will remain unchanged.

New council-specific application instructions and forms will be published on the Arts Council of Finland website in August.

President of the Republic Tarja Halonen has awarded film director Aki Kaurismäki the title of Academician of Art on the proposal of the Arts Council of Finland. President Halonen conferred the title on Kaurismäki in Helsinki on 23 May. 

The title of Academician of Art is awarded in recognition of an exceptionally distinguished artist. The title can be held by a maximum of eight artists at any one time. The Arts Council of Finland nominated the new holder of the title following the death of Academician Rauni Mollberg. The other current Academicians of Art are: author Paavo Haavikko, graphic artist Outi Heiskanen, architect Juha Leiviskä, theatre director Ralf Långbacka, author Veijo Meri, conductor Jorma Panula, and textile and fashion designer Vuokko Nurmesniemi.

The grounds for the nomination are as follows:

An Academician of Art must be an exceptionally distinguished artist. This description befits Aki Kaurismäki unusually well. His career as a cinema artist has been consistent and ambitious from the very beginning. A good example of this is his first film, which is based on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Since his first work, Aki Kaurismäki has had a recognisable cinematic style of his own. An essential feature of this style, which could even be described as minimalist, is its link to Finland and Finnishness. Aki Kaurismäki's "working class trilogy" and "Finland trilogy" portray Finland in a completely novel, coarse and reduced way.

When an artist's work does not reproduce real life meticulously, it often generates amazement, even resistance. Being an artist who creates something new is not easy anywhere, and it was not until becoming internationally renowned that Aki Kaurismäki was recognised in Finland. The Grand Prix awarded to his film The Man Without a Past and Academy Award nomination as the best foreign language film finally established his position as one of the greatest film directors of our time.

Aki Kaurismäki is one of the few Finnish artists whose specific style is internationally recognised. His surname has almost become an adjective for the cinematic style of others besides Aki Kaurismäki himself. There is no doubt about Aki Kaurismäki being the best-known Finnish film artist. His significance as a trailblazer of Finnish cinema and also other art is important and enduring.

Aki Kaurismäki is not only a film director; he has also had a more extensive effect on the development of Finland's film culture. It has been on his initiative that a considerable number of significant films have seen theatre distribution, and in recent years he has pointed out the availability and opportunities for showing film classics. In the field of film culture, the Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä, of which Kaurismäki is a co-founder, is a significant annual event, also known among international film festivals as a special, exotic and easy-going festival.

Aki Kaurismäki is internationally known as a Finnish filmmaker who, in spite of his international career, is deeply linked with Finnish society and cultural life through his films and otherwise.