Reindeer sausage and cloudberry jellies awaited guests at the opening of the Way Out exhibition at the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now under the newly formed Aalto University) featuring objects inspired by Lapland.

A group of 11 Master degree students took a week out of their busy routines to travel 13 hours north to a remote part of Lapland in search of new experiences to inspire their work.

"Transitional Objects" by Timo Halko was a definite favourite. The set of three reindeer fur "fictional products" are intended to ease the migrating Lappish youth into the clamour of city life - the ear protectors and eye mask simulating the silence and calm of home.

Much more from the "Way Out" exhibition after the jump.

Juho-Pekka Virtanen created these ice "kuksas" (traditional Lappish hand-made wooden cups) in protest to the mass-manufacturing of the cups for the tourist market - a practice that is slowly killing the traditional industry. The accompanying series of photos shows one of the ice cups, dyed in traditional Lappish colours, slowly melting.

Gerrit Wigger, also inspired by the traditional kuksa, produced this series of coffee tables. Kuksa are very personal objects that typically last a lifetime, changing gradually with time and use. Two of the tables are stained with coffee, the third has had the corners sawn off and then set alight on the surface, producing enough heat to cook a Biletti of coffee.

Not all the works were inspired by Lappish people or traditions directly.Vincent Vergain's work, for example, drew on the story of the Sutyagin House, a 13 storey wooden house built by a Russian gangster in the city of Arkhangelsk that was later demolished as a fire hazard, creating a scale model of this remarkable structure from the few remaining photographs.

Joanne Lin got thinking about food and the role it plays in traditions and cultures. A foreigner herself, Joanne paradies traditional FInnish cuisine with a recipe book made from the recipes of students from overseas trying to recreate the tastes of home with ingredients from Finnish supermarkets.

Inspired by the emptiness of Lapland, Johanna Nieminen created a conceptual service she called DisconnectedHolidays.com. We often have problems disconnecting from work when we are on holiday - usually due to the fact that we take our phones and laptops with us. With DisconnectedHolidays.com you can send all your communication devices away whilst you take a relaxing break without the temptation of checking your mails and get them delivered back to you on your return.

Kim Lê found inspiration in her memories of her trip to Lapland, attempting to capture them all in glass jars. She then classified and arranged these memories in a Periodic table.

The exhibition is open until the 26th March and admission is free.