Alkumuna / The Beginning

The Hungarian artist Tamas Ortutay’s (born 1946) work is inspired by the first poem in Kalevala which depicts the creation of the world: For at once the crumbs grew comely And the pieces beautiful. One egg’s lower half transformed And became the earth below, And its upper half transmuted And became the sky above; (transl. by Eino Friberg) The work is large-scale ceramics, realized using the high- fired shamotti technique. The piece was donated by the city of Budapest to the city of Helsinki and it belongs to the City of Helsinki’s art collection, which is managed and curated by HAM. The work was unveiled in 1971.