Vimma and Tiisu use €70,000 grant to push environmental activism

Indie rock bands Vimma and Tiisu are touring Finland with the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation after receiving a €70,000 grant, Yle reports. One of the project’s aims is to provoke people who are already angry and gain visibility on social media through so-called rage bait.

The bands have performed at six locations during the autumn. Each event includes two concerts and a discussion on local environmental issues.

At a free concert in Pub Sarvi in Rovaniemi, the audience sang along to lyrics about rebellion and a nation full of “cream bottoms”. One song was dedicated to mussels that had been run over by forest machinery.

“Nothing will ever return to normal when everything dies like the mussels,” Tiisu singer Henrik Illikainen sang.

Before the music began, about 20 people attended a discussion on the proposed national park in southwestern Lapland. The conversation also covered mines in Lapland’s Natura areas, their emissions and other impacts.

Sisli Piisilä, executive director of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation’s Lapland district, said it was important for people from elsewhere in Finland to support environmental issues in smaller communities.

“The smaller the community, the more important it is that people who support nature also come there from elsewhere. They create space for local thinkers,” Piisilä said.

Grant required social impact

The grant awarded to the Vimma collective and its partners was the only grant from the Kone Foundation’s “On the Forest’s Side” theme last year to fund a music tour.

In 2025, the Kone Foundation awarded more than €65 million in grants, prizes and donations. A total of €8.6 million was allocated through the forest-themed programme, which supported research, art, journalism and activism related to forests. Artistic projects received €1.5 million.

Mari Mäkiranta, an associate professor at the University of Lapland who has studied activist art, said social impact is often required in applications for foundation grants, but is rarely the only basis for awarding funding.

“There is also other kinds of art. We may get the impression that only art that takes a stand receives funding, because it perhaps receives the most publicity,” Mäkiranta said.

Music draws the crowd

The nature conservation association had seal stickers and membership forms on a table in the bar. Piisilä said the event did not have a specific target for increasing membership, but she hoped to reach people who were not familiar with the organisation through its traditional channels.

The bar filled up only after the discussion ended and the music began. During one song, Illikainen told the audience to take out their phones and sign a citizens’ initiative opposing forest clear-cutting.

“There are now 8,900 signatures. I will not continue the song until there are 8,930,” Illikainen shouted into the microphone. A moment later, he announced that the total had reached 8,940 and resumed the performance.

Illikainen said he knew little about nature conservation, which was precisely why he had joined the tour.

“I represent the people who know nothing but are interested. I suspect most people are somewhere in between: they follow things a little from the sidelines and wonder what is going on,” he said.