A Floating Border – En Flytande Gräns – Kelluva raja
Swedish-Finnish group exhibition at Yö Galleria, Helsinki, May 8 – May 30 2021
Curated by Anton Wiraeus and Ilkka Pitkänen
In these times of travel restrictions and quarantine, remote work and closed cultural facilities, we feel that it is important to look ahead and maintain contact with our neighbouring countries.
For the exhibition project that takes place in May 2021, we start a collaboration and exchange with artists from Finland and Sweden. The first part of the exhibition will be held in Yö Galleria, which is located on Lönnrotinkatu, Helsinki and is run by the newly found Artists' Association Yö.
The theme and name of the exhibition is A floating border. The land border between Finland and Sweden is 555 kilometers long and consists for the most part of rivers that flow between the countries and also the Baltic Sea, where moving water is the barrier that separates the countries. A boundary that cannot be marked out and that is constantly moving in different directions.
Although water often means that it is not possible to cross the national border, the border between Finland and Sweden has not been so prominent and it has often been commonplace to cross it, like going to another city or visiting a neighbour who lives only a short distance away. The more inconspicuous passages have been the crossing of the bridge from Haparanda to Tornio or sailing from the Stockholm archipelago into the Finnish and Åland archipelagos. Commonplace but also a bit festive, it has been to take one of the ferries over between the countries and then disembark in the "neighbouring town" and meet old friends.
During 2020 and 2021, these boundaries have become sharper and for larger periods made more difficult to access.
With the exhibition, we want the artists to take as their point of departure that the border is still fluid and floating and that with today's digital technology it becomes even more fluid and no longer razor sharp. The participating artists work with different types of expressions from performance, video, photography to painting and objects, the end result is a diversity of reflections and thoughts about the floating border.
Artists:
From Finland: Tuomas Holst, Maija Kivi, Laura Könönen, Peetu Liesinen, Kim Somervuori, Minnamari Toukola
From Sweden: Rebecka Bebben Andersson, Rune Andersson, Carolina Billvik, Ossian Eckerman, Elin Magnusson, Anton Wiraeus, Arvid Wretman
Yö Galleria
Lönnrotinkatu 33
00180 Helsinki
info@yory.fi
www.yory.fi
Opening hours:
Tue-Fri 14-19
Sat-Sun 12-17