Helsinki in Motion, for the Helsinki City Museum.
PAST.Fi is an ongoing artistic experiment by dominik.fi (credited as Dominik Trnečka) that uses generative video models to restore and animate Helsinki's archival photography from 1880–1920. The work is part of the new permanent main exhibition at the Helsinki City Museum (Helsingin kaupunginmuseo), at Aleksanterinkatu 16 in central Helsinki, and opens on 13 June 2026.
The work
The project appears in the permanent exhibition as two distinct installations:
- Video stereoscopes: close-up viewers showing restored portraits and short scenes from the museum's photographic collection, most drawn from Signe Brander's 1907–1913 documentation of Helsinki.
- Panorama: a wide-format work built from an 1847 illustration by Magnus von Wright, extending the historical image into slow, drifting motion.
How it was made
A custom internal pipeline using fells.studio and addet.eu tooling selects archival photographs, analyses them with a vision model, and produces short looping video clips using image-to-video models, followed by post-production compositing in DaVinci Resolve. The result brings century-old Helsinki (its residents, streets, and architecture) back into motion.
Credits
- Dominik Trnečka, fells.studio, addet.eu
- In collaboration with the Helsinki City Museum's exhibition team
- Sauli Seppälä
- Jere Jäppinen
- Katri Lento
- Tommi Uutela
In the press
- Helsinki City Museum The new main exhibition explores everyday life in Helsinki
- City of Helsinki The new main exhibition explores everyday life in Helsinki
- Helsingin kaupunginmuseo Uuden päänäyttelyn aiheena on helsinkiläinen arki
- Helsingin kaupunki Uuden päänäyttelyn aiheena on helsinkiläinen arki
- Helsingfors stadsmuseum Helsingfors vardag är temat för nya huvudutställning
- Helsingfors stad Helsingfors vardag är temat för stadsmuseets nya huvudutställning
More on my background and other work: dominik.fi.