Material sexually depicting a child was found in the remains of the artist Erkki Kurenniemi, who died in 2017

Artist Erkki Kurenniemen (1941–2017) material depicting children sexually has been found in the artistic remains.

The police seized 242 CDs from Kurenniemi’s ice storage in October. Material depicting children sexually was found in 11 of them, confirms the crime commissioner Ritva Elomaa.

Elomaa does not say more about the content of the material or its form. However, the crime title talks about the possession of an image depicting a child sexually.

“It’s just the footage from which we check whether it meets the criteria,” says Elomaa.

“If that [kohde] seems to be a minor and it is material that sexually portrays a child, then it meets the hallmarks of a crime, because possession of such material is a crime.”

Usually material depicting a child sexually means illegal image or video material that has been produced to satisfy the sexual needs of an adult.

In such material, the child is often either the target of sexual violence or the naked child is presented in a sexual way. It can also be a picture whose focus is on the child’s genital area.

Criminal District Commissioner Elomaa does not take a position on the situation or purpose in which the material was filmed.

Because there is no suspect alive, the investigation is closed. According to Elomaa, the police have destroyed all 11 discs containing material depicting children sexually.

“If even one image or file like this is detected on one disk, the entire disk has been destroyed,” says Elomaa.

HS reports previously from the police preliminary investigation related to Kurenniemi. Kurenniemi’s archive material was delivered from the National Gallery to the police in the first week of October.

“We have Erkki Kurenniemi’s archive material, and after going through it, we found content that we concluded should be investigated by the police”, General Director of the National Gallery Kimmo Läva previously told HS.

According to Levä, the archive consists of both archival material documenting Kurenniemi’s life and an archive compiled by the artist herself.

In the year Kurenniemi, who died in 2017, was a pioneer of electronic music, a developer of robot technology and an instrument builder of electronic synthesizers.

During his career, he built several electronic music instruments, such as DIMI synthesizers and studio equipment.

Kurenniemi was involved in the computer revolution in the 1970s. In the 1980s, he worked as a designer of control systems for industrial robots and later in design tasks at Tiedekeskus Heureka.

The artist died at the age of 76. He left behind A “filing cabinet” worth of diaries and videos spoken to c-cassettes.