Finish Union for Professionals in Film, Media, and Performing Arts, LP, highlights and celebrates professionals and colleagues in our fields
LP grants annual awards based on collegial proposals, which is much appreciated by those awarded. There’s one Designer of the Year in the audiovisual field, two grants in the field of Performing Arts (Costume Designer and Set Designer of the Year), and a scholarship for a student, either Costume Design, Stage/Production Design, or Performing Arts. Now and then LP also grants honorary memberships for their meritorious members.
Awards can be granted for exceptional work, supportive work developing our professions, new phenomena in the field, or achievements in the educational field. The granted can be either individuals or a group.
In addition to artistic work, some previous grants have been given also for a fundamental work for higher education in the field (f.ex. funding the university curriculum for Costume Design for performing arts and film) or developing new ways to work as designers in the field (League of Heroes – a work community of young Production-, Costume- and Prop Designers).
And they always have a party to celebrate the awarded!
Prizes for the audiovisual field are awarded annually in December – at the moment we are asking for collegial suggestions for Designer of the Year 2024.
Tiina Kaukanen, Costume Designer
Designer of the Year 2023
📸 Mark Lwoff
Costume designer Tiina Kaukanen has designed a wide range of film genres without fear of subject matter. She has designed epic, musical, comedy, realism, and dystopia as well as children’s and youth films.
Kaukanen’s design is based on strong visual thinking. She uses the camera naturally and thus also grasps the legality of the film; materials, depth, light and shadow, time, perspective, precision and vagueness. Tiina Kaukanen’s design is based on insights about the world and the twists and turns it offers. She is not afraid of work, she is precise in her views, sharp as a razor and incomparable when splashing with a wide brush.
During her long career, Tiina Kaukanen has paved the way both for Costume Design as a more prestigious profession and for Costume Designers in Finnish cinema and Theater as respected professionals in their field. In addition to the fact that she has had a comprehensive and versatile artistic career, her style of guiding and encouraging younger colleagues in the field is precious and meaningful.
Production Designer Anu Maja
HONORARY MEMBER 2023
📸 Anu Maja
LP grants Production Designer Anu Maja with a lifelong honorary membership of LP.
Anu Maja is the mother of Finnish Stage Design and a big-hearted artist. Almost every person currently working as a Production Designer in the Finnish field has studied with her at the Department of Scenography, where she served as a professor at the School of Art and Design, now Aalto University.
In addition to her teaching career, Anu worked as a Stage Designer for Yleisradio and as the head of the PD department for decades; she designed numerous films. When Anu started her career as a designer, there were still some black-and-white programs on television. Color was one big change she saw. Another big upheaval was digital. Anu Maja took Yle through the digitization process of design.
Anu’s cheerful and encouraging presence and long career as an artist are familiar to a large part of the designers of today’s generation. As a fellow artist and pedagogue, Anu Maja is skilled, encouraging and fearless, and a great example for many of us.
Costume Designer Marja Uusitalo
HONORARY MEMBER Marja Uusitalo
📸 Tanja Ahola
LP ry grants Costume Designer Marja Uusitalo a lifelong honorary membership of LP.
Marja Uusitalo is a visionary costume designer who, during her more than 40-year career, has both achieved a lot and given a lot, in both fields of art and education. Marja Uusitalo’s strong and comprehensive artistry is philosophical but also playful, sensitive, and limitless.
Uusitalo’s work has been seen on the stage of the National Opera, the National Theater, and the Helsinki City Theatre. In addition, she has designed numerous costumes for films and television and is also known for her wonderful designs for dance.
Marja Uusitalo’s work as the developer of the Master’s Degree in Costume Design and as the lecturer responsible for the orientation option of the degree program is significant. Uusitalo has also acted as a mouthpiece to increase the visibility and appreciation of Costume Design. She was also awarded the 2023 State Prize for Art for her distinguished career.