Creativity belongs closer to the centre.
ODD grew from a simple idea: Finland has extraordinary creative talent, and there is more potential in what can happen around it — when people, places, resources and different parts of society connect more easily.
Finland already has strong artists, organisations, institutions, funding and creative communities. What is often harder is continuity: projects, spaces, networks and partnerships do not always connect in ways that let relationships, knowledge and opportunities build on each other over time.
There is also more potential in bringing creative and cultural expertise into closer contact with business, institutions and public life. Creative practice carries real expertise in attention, taste, meaning, experimentation and making things that did not exist before — capabilities that matter far beyond the cultural sector.
ODD builds places, events and projects where those connections can happen more naturally. We do not claim to represent the creative field; we create conditions for different people and practices to meet, work together and keep going.
Different problems need different structures.
One annual event cannot create continuity on its own. A workspace cannot create the same public momentum as a city-wide week. A good conversation does not become collaboration by itself. ODD uses different formats for different jobs.
Events create reasons to gather
ODDfest makes creative activity across Helsinki visible as one shared week. ODDference creates a deliberately composed professional room around creative expertise. Both create moments that would not otherwise exist.
Spaces give people somewhere to return
ODDspace is the everyday layer: somewhere to work, meet, host things and keep going between projects and events.
Projects and relationships let something continue
ODDagency and partnerships create ways to keep working together when there is a real reason to do so. Programmes can add another layer when there is a clear need and the funding to run them properly.
How we got here.
New Nordic Way rf
The association is founded in Helsinki. The idea that becomes ODD is still taking shape.
Finding the gap
The question becomes clearer: Finland has strong creative talent, and more can happen when there is greater continuity around the work and stronger links between creative fields and the rest of society.
The first ODDfest
The first public experiment brings 2,600+ participants, 350+ contributors and 70+ partners together in Helsinki.
More than one event
Creative Week tests a distributed city-wide model. ODDference tests the professional proposition. ODDspace creates a year-round physical base.
New way forward
Creative Week becomes ODDfest, 19–25 April. ODDference stands as its own business conference, 22–23 April at Tanssin talo, and on the Friday the week comes together there for ODDcelebration. ODDspace continues year-round. Projects, partnerships and a developing organisational network create further ways to work together. This is the structure we are building, not a finished system.
ODD is operated by New Nordic Way rf, a Finnish non-profit association based in Helsinki.
A few things we try to hold onto.
- 01
Make room for other people's work
ODD should create conditions for people to bring their own ideas, practice and expertise — not make itself the centre of everything.
- 02
Make crossing worlds normal
Creative fields, business and institutions do not need to become the same thing. They should be able to work together without the crossing feeling exceptional.
- 03
Participation over spectatorship
ODD is strongest when people can do something: host, make, question, contribute, build or take responsibility.
- 04
People are not the product
Creative people are not a talent inventory for companies, and companies are not simply funding sources. Both are participants with their own reasons to be there.
- 05
Good intentions need good economics
If something is meant to last, the economics need to work for the people actually making it — not just for the idea behind it.
Two years of ODD, in numbers.
Stages, tables and rooms full of people.
From ODDfest 2025 and 2026, events hosted across Helsinki, and ODDspace.
