Henry Mintzberg’s Collection of Beaver Sculptures

A conversation between Henry Mintzberg, Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Juha Huuskonen

🕔 Monday, June 16 at 10:00 AM (Montreal/NY) / 16:00 (CET) / 17:00 (Helsinki)

» JOIN THE LIVE ONLINE EVENT VIA THIS LINK

» Watch Henry Mintzberg’s Beaver Sculptures: A Guided Tour

Henry Mintzberg is a renowned Canadian management scholar, best known for his influential work on emergent strategy, organisational structures, and rebalancing society. Born in 1939, he is a professor at McGill University in Montreal. He has long challenged conventional thinking in management, advocating for communityship, practical experience, and adaptive approaches to strategy. His books The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning and Strategy Safari are classics in the field.

In addition to his academic work, Mintzberg has spent the past few decades collecting a peculiar form of art: beaver sculptures, i.e. parts of trees sculpted by beavers. The collection and Henry’s reflections on it are captured in a new 11-minute video filmed at his home by Lac Castor (Beaver Lake) in rural Canada.

To mark the online premiere of this video, we invite you to join a live online discussion with Henry Mintzberg, Juha Huuskonen (CEO, Frame Contemporary Art Finland), Jonatan Habib Engqvist (independent curator), and Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir (artist). The event will include a short excerpt from the video, followed by a conversation on beaver sculptures, artistic processes shaped by nature, and the boundaries between natural and human-made creativity.

Linkedin event · Facebook event

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Jonatan Habib Engqvist is an author, curator and occasional teacher with a background in Philosophy and Aesthetic theory who has worked extensively with residencies. Since 2021 he is also editor of Ord&Bild together with Ann Ighe. Critic/curator in Residency at HIAP, Helsinki and Art OMI, NY, 2023. From 2024, chair of The Swedish Association of Curators and mentor at Saastamoinen Foundation’s international mentoring programme, UNIARTS Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki with Angela Rosenberg. Jonatan is the curator of Larissa Sansour’s exhibition The Past Never Was, It Only Is, which recently opened at Reykjanes Art Museum in Iceland. https://philosophy.se

Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir is a visual artist working with kinetic sculptural installations, material performances, as well as photography, drawing, and film. Nurturing time-dependent behaviour of raw materials within staged settings, her works invite repeat engagement and speak to cyclical transitions. Tryggvadóttir carves out situations that nurture and challenge inter-relationships, particularly those underlying the human perspective towards the natural world. https://www.annaruntryggvadottir.com

Juha Huuskonen is an art curator and organisational leader, currently serving as the CEO of Frame Contemporary Art Finland. He previously directed HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme (2014–2024), where he led numerous international collaborations and sustainability-focused projects. With a background in interactive digital media and media art, Huuskonen has co-founded several influential initiatives, including Avanto Festival and Pixelache Festival. He has also worked as an artist, software designer, and educator. https://www.juhuu.nu