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For the second year running, the festival will be introducing a visual artist, who will create a wholly new, exceptionally elaborate piece of art in the festival area. The visual artist of the year at 2012′s Flow was Tuomas Aleksander Laitinen, who created the video installation Passage. This year pioneer of Finnish street art, Otto Maja, will do a 168 square metre piece together with his Icelandic friend Mint.

At festival area, Sensory Cocktail Bar presents the latest in urban culture with its unique recipe. Contemporary dance, theatre, performance art and new gaming technologies create this cocktail of experiential design. Order a cocktail and The Sensory Cocktail Bar’s artists will make one to engage your vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

The collaboration with Make Your Mark gallery at Suvilahti also continues, when one of Sweden’s most acclaimed artists today, the graffiti legend Ikaroz brings his Mano-a-mano exhibition to the venue.

This year we will also give the audience a possibility to participate in making art. The Hate Destroyer, 67-year-old Irmela Mensah-Schramm from Berlin destroys and paints over every racist, anti-semitic and homophobic graffiti, sticker and poster she comes across. At Flow she will co-create a piece of art together with festival guests and No Hate Speech Movement.

DESIGN AT THE FESTIVAL

This year, letters made out of plants welcome visitors to the festival by the entrance to Suvilahti’s old power station area. The piece of greenery, called Living Flow, has been created by Green House Effect, who specialize in making public spaces green.

Another landmark you are sure to spot at the festival is the roof of the Balloon 360° Stage – a gigantic pressurized balloon. Balloon 360° was created last year as the result of an international architecture competition, and this years its seating area has been further developed and will be decorated with Vallila fabrics with photographer Phillip László’s prints that reflect his thinking about lost people and the crudeness of society.

Our Champagne Bar & Lounge, has also been upgrated for this year. Designed by architect Juhana Heikonen, the 200 square metre bar has a new look and it is built using collaborator UPM’s ProFi materials that are created using recycling technologies.

Flow’s other design partners are Martela and Out Of The Dark Group with their interior design, and Huiskula with its flower and plant arrangements.

FULL-LENGHT AND SHORT FILMS

Several full-length films and short film series will also be shown at this years festival.

The winner of an Oscar in the documentary category, Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugarman is about the enigmatic musician Sixto Rodriguez.

Uprising: Hip Hop & The LA Riots, directed by Mark Ford, focuses on the riots between African-Americans and the LA police, and especially on the role hip hop had in the chaos.

Last Shop Standing is based on Graham Jones’s book by the same name, and is a documentary of the rise, fall and rebirth of records stores. The film also raises thoughts about the future of record stores in an age, when everything is instantly available online.

Future Shorts, AV-arkki and Elokuvakontakti present the most interesting and topical short film series daily during the Flow Festival weekend.

Our Film Garage will also take a huge leap forward technically, when one of the elite manufactures of self-powered speakers, the Finnish Genelec, equips the space with their 5.1. flagship sound system.