Sakari Tervo

Sakari Tervo (he/him, b. 1985, Helsinki) is a curator and educator based in Helsinki, Finland. He works as a university teacher at Aalto University and is the founder of Pitted Dates, an independent exhibition platform dedicated to thoughtful, carefully curated group exhibitions. Originally based in a vacant shopping mall kitchen, Pitted Dates now operates from a former two-room cold storage space. Its program brings together emerging and established artists in poetically framed contexts. Since its founding in 2023, the platform has hosted numerous exhibitions, each accompanied by a newly commissioned poem that functions both as a press text and as a work in its own right.

Tervo was originally trained as an artist, receiving both his BFA and MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, with a focus on collaborative artmaking. He exhibited internationally before gradually shifting his focus to curating. Prior to founding Pitted Dates, he curated a series of online exhibitions. He has co-directed the artist-run spaces Titanik (2012–2014) in Turku and Sorbus (2014–2019) in Helsinki –the latter of which played a key role in shaping a generation of artist-led practices in Finland.

In addition to his curatorial work, Tervo has been active in arts education since 2013. He has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts and Taidekoulu MAA, and since 2021, he has served as a university teacher at Aalto University.
At the heart of Tervo’s work lies a belief in art as a social weave –a field where alternative worlds are rehearsed, imagined, and made visible. His curatorial thinking focuses on the porous and relational dynamics that shape contemporary exhibition making.

Neatly packed group exhibitions of the finest quality — thoughts on why I founded Pitted Dates

In this presentation, I will share my curatorial practice through Pitted Dates, exploring group exhibitions as platforms that connect artists and audiences, specifically in Helsinki.