/open-call-old/index.html 2021-03-28T12:59:09.593Z weekly Page Open call old NO NIIN has an ongoing OPEN CALL throughout the year for new contributors. Each issue of NO NIIN includes texts and multimedia content commissioned directly by the editors, as well as pieces originating from pitches submitted through this OPEN CALL. /event-calendar/index.html 2021-03-28T12:59:37.188Z weekly Page Event Calendar The NO NIIN Event Calendar /contributors/index.html 2021-03-28T13:00:01.205Z weekly Page Contributors The contributors at NO NIIN form a diverse group. Some of us experience different kinds of oppression and violence. We want to create a space that recognises and challenges the oppression and exploitation that some of us are harmed by and some of us benefit from. /contact/index.html 2021-03-28T13:00:15.400Z weekly Page Contact Address general emails and enquiries to hello@no-niin.com /about/index.html 2021-03-29T08:34:30.828Z weekly Page About NO NIIN is an independent online monthly magazine at the cusp of art, criticality, and love. NO NIIN absorbs the disruptive sparks emerging from the intersectional art and culture environs that counter the status quo, aspiring to develop them as springboards for new ways of thinking and working towards hope, liberation, and building internationalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist solidarities. /who-we-are/index.html 2021-03-29T08:34:40.679Z weekly Page Who we are The contributors at NO NIIN form a diverse group. /basis-of-unity/index.html 2021-03-29T08:34:51.439Z weekly Page Basis of Unity As a magazine, we want to be a safe, empowering, welcoming space of discovery for all contributors, and readers, especially those of us traditionally on the margins. The contributors at the NO NIIN form a diverse group. /where-did-all-the-money-go/index.html 2021-03-29T08:35:09.468Z weekly Page Where did all the money go? Budgets are a challenging part of any project but as we see it, it is essentially a well-thought plan for the money to be spent on services, contributions and labour. /causes-of-sleepless-nights/index.html 2021-03-29T08:35:22.068Z weekly Page Causes of Sleepless Nights Afraid that NO NIIN becomes exclusive... /conflict-resolution/index.html 2021-03-29T08:35:38.915Z weekly Page Conflict resolution As co-founders and co-editors of NO NIIN, one of the things we–Elham Rahmati & Vidha Saumya–wish to be mindful of is to lay down sensible and considerate mechanism for dealing with conflicts and disputes that may arise between us and our collaborators at NO NIIN. /contracts/index.html 2021-03-29T08:35:47.022Z weekly Page Contracts We feel that as a newly formed working group it is important to respect, acknowledge and safeguard the rights of our contributors and service providers by making fair and transparent contracts. /free-palestine-a-call-to-action-for-finnish-art-and-culture-institutions/index.html 2021-05-19T12:39:48.939Z weekly Page Free Palestine – a Call to Action for Finnish Art and Culture Institutions /open-call-for-a-co-editor/index.html 2021-08-30T19:20:14.653Z weekly Page Open Call for a Co-editor The 21st edition of Baltic Circle International Theatre Festival is happening between 19 –27 of November 2021. This year, the festival is collaborating with NO NIIN, an independent online monthly magazine at the cusp of art, criticality and love. We, the editors of NO NIIN, would like to invite an individual working in the field of contemporary theatre and performance to be the guest-editor for the two issues of November 2021 and December 2021. The guest editor will participate as co-editor with the editorial team of the magazine. /kiasmas-response-to-the-question-of-roles-and-responsibilities/index.html 2021-09-14T14:41:44.901Z weekly Page Kiasma’s response to the question of Roles and Responsibilities The main point is that the Museum of Contemporary Art makes all content decisions independently as a curatorial team consisting of the museum director together with curators in collections, temporary exhibitions, Kiasma Theatre and public program. Kiasma Support Foundation’s board members are not taking part in the selection process of museum’s program or art acquisitions. /shop/index.html 2022-06-07T11:40:56.438Z weekly Page Shop NO NIIN is an independent online monthly magazine at the cusp of art, criticality and love. The magazine functions as a platform for commissioning writers of any background to express their thoughts in the form of essays, reviews, interviews, art, poetry, short fiction, podcasts, and playlists. NO NIIN absorbs the disruptive sparks emerging from the intersectional art and culture environs that counter the status quo, aspiring to develop them as springboards for new ways of thinking and working towards hope, liberation, and building transnational, feminist anti-imperialist solidarities. /open-call/index.html 2022-11-30T16:33:55.109Z weekly Page Open call At the moment we don’t have an Open Call. We commission directly our authors and artists, but if you’d like us to know your work, you can contact us by email at noniinmagazine@gmail.com. Please bear in mind we might not be able to answer, but we’ll definitely read your email). /most-read/index.html 2023-03-05T08:18:32.876Z weekly Page Most read /editorial-index/index.html 2023-03-05T08:18:46.499Z weekly Page Editorial Index /privacy-policy/index.html 2023-04-15T07:06:34.063Z weekly Page Privacy policy NO NIIN ry is an independent association registered in the Finnish Patent and Registration Office. NO NIIN ry is a legal person. /stockists/index.html 2023-10-25T03:53:29.987Z weekly Page Stockists NO NIIN Magazine’s print publications — Volume 1: Imagined Collectivities and Volume 2: Long Before Justice — can be found at the following locations /frames-reply-to-selling-the-nordic-miracle/index.html 2023-12-14T07:00:00.037Z weekly Page Frame's Reply to Selling the Nordic Miracle The main concern in the article is the “ever-rising classism, social discrimination, racism, and the exclusion of non-Finnish workers”. We recognise that this is an issue that requires constant work, improvement and addressing also in the art field. We are, of course, very disappointed if the work we have done at Frame on social responsibility, in recruitment and the public programme is in no way visible to the writers. /support/index.html 2024-06-30T08:05:26.467Z weekly Page Support This year marks the end of our confirmed funding. The potential closure of NO NIIN would be a disservice to readers, writers, and artists, as well as ourselves. Our magazine amplifies crucial voices and is a vibrant hub for the arts and culture scene locally and internationally. Your contribution, big or small, and your willingness to lend support will ensure NO NIIN continues to be an exceptional platform. /essays/index.html 2021-03-27T21:16:27.198Z weekly Genre Essays /essays/page-1/index.html 2021-03-27T21:16:27.198Z weekly Genre All Essays /reviews/index.html 2021-03-27T21:16:46.683Z weekly Genre Reviews /reviews/page-1/index.html 2021-03-27T21:16:46.683Z weekly Genre All Reviews /interviews/index.html 2021-03-27T21:17:01.919Z weekly Genre Interviews /interviews/page-1/index.html 2021-03-27T21:17:01.919Z weekly Genre All Interviews /poetry-and-short-fiction/index.html 2021-03-27T21:17:36.342Z weekly Genre Poetry & short fiction /poetry-and-short-fiction/page-1/index.html 2021-03-27T21:17:36.342Z weekly Genre All Poetry & short fiction /art/index.html 2021-03-27T21:17:51.818Z weekly Genre Art /podcasts-and-playlists/index.html 2021-03-27T21:18:35.290Z weekly Genre Podcasts and playlists /editorials/index.html 2022-03-20T13:07:49.845Z weekly Genre Editorials /research-papers/index.html 2023-04-11T15:01:46.316Z weekly Genre Research papers /research-papers/page-1/index.html 2023-04-11T15:01:46.316Z weekly Genre All Research papers / 2025-12-17T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 33 / To Decide Your Becoming 2025-12-17 /issue-32/index.html 2025-10-24T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 32 / Film as Memory, Film as Resistance 2025-10-24 /issue-31/index.html 2025-08-21T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 31 / Persistent Traces of Removal 2025-08-21 /issue-30/index.html 2025-06-17T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 30 / Normality That Should Not Exist 2025-06-17 /issue-29/index.html 2025-04-11T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 29 / Sites of Resistance and Remembrance 2025-04-11 /issue-28/index.html 2024-12-10T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 28 / How We Come to Imagine Freedom 2024-12-10 /issue-27/index.html 2024-10-29T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 27 / To Work with the Silences in History 2024-10-29 /issue-26/index.html 2024-09-19T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 26 / Navigating the Shadows of Towering Institutions 2024-09-19 /issue-25/index.html 2024-08-15T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 25 / Rebellion is on Their Way 2024-08-15 /issue-24/index.html 2024-05-16T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 24 / The Politics of Domination by Spectacle 2024-05-16 /issue-23/index.html 2024-03-29T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 23 / Disrupting Rhetoric, Defining Tenor 2024-03-29 /issue-22/index.html 2024-02-28T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 22 / The Meaning of Collectivisation Among Cultural Workers 2024-02-28 /issue-21/index.html 2023-12-18T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 21 / Is the land yours if you burn it? 2023-12-18 /issue-20/index.html 2023-10-25T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 20 / (un)rooted temporalities 2023-10-25 /issue-19/index.html 2023-09-21T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 19 / Production of Art in Conditions of Unfreedom 2023-09-21 /issue-18/index.html 2023-08-18T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 18 / Telltale Tingles to Survive Long Battles 2023-08-18 /issue-17/index.html 2023-05-24T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 17 / Displacements, Discomforts, Translocations 2023-05-24 /issue-16/index.html 2023-04-19T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 16 / Representation of Disobedient Bodies 2023-04-19 /issue-15/index.html 2022-11-25T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 15 / Where There Is Trouble, There Is Agency 2022-11-25 /issue-14/index.html 2022-10-20T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 14 / Women Bringing Their Wounds to the City Square 2022-10-20 /issue-13/index.html 2022-09-22T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 13 / Toolkits of Resistance 2022-09-22 /issue-12/index.html 2022-06-22T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 12 / Long Before Justice 2022-06-22 /issue-11/index.html 2022-05-20T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 11 / The Unsettling of Institutions 2022-05-20 /issue-10/index.html 2022-04-21T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 10 / Working with Friction & Confrontation 2022-04-21 /issue-9/index.html 2022-03-22T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 9 / This Dream of Liberation 2022-03-22 /issue-8/index.html 2021-12-13T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 8 / Embracing Doubt 2021-12-13 /issue-7/index.html 2021-11-12T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 7 / In the Crisis of Time 2021-11-12 /issue-6/index.html 2021-10-14T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 6 / Diaspora Mixtapes 2021-10-14 /issue-5/index.html 2021-09-15T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 5 / Our Efforts To Show Solidarity 2021-09-15 /issue-4/index.html 2021-06-22T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 4 / Imagined Collectivities 2021-06-22 /issue-3/index.html 2021-05-20T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 3 / Producing & Practising Presence 2021-05-20 /issue-2/index.html 2021-04-15T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 2 / Finding Forms to Recognize Warmth 2021-04-15 /issue-1/index.html 2021-03-08T00:00:00.000Z weekly Issue Issue 1 / This Joyous Hospitality 2021-03-08 /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A True Artistic Sisterhood: A Conversation Between Saadia Hussain & Nayab Noor Ikram Oppression is not always visible in the Nordics. Many believe they have come far, but it becomes clear who truly faces the systematic stripping of identity. This is especially evident for non-white people. While others assume progress has been made, it is we who reveal that their successes are often an illusion. "Issue 33" "Interview" "" "Saadia Hussain, Nayab Noor Ikram" /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Revealing a Quiet Slip in the Archive: An Interview with Kosisochukwu Nnebe Colonial narratives, however, warped these histories, fetishizing these women, printing their images on postcards, and erasing the real story. I’m interested in uncovering these histories of ingenuity and resilience, how Black and Indigenous peoples made something out of nothing—and connecting them to the present. My work asks, what can we learn from these acts, and how might they shape the way we engage with each other today? "Issue 33" "Interview" "" "Golrokh Nafisi" /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Migration and the Politics of Belonging: An Interview with Sarah Nakiito Simply using the material is an act of resilience – it asserts that bark cloth still holds significance for Ugandans today. In Uganda, I purchased a large quantity of it and visited the farmers who cultivate and care for the mutuba trees. This is generational work—many of these trees were planted by their fathers, their grandfathers, and even further back. "Issue 33" "Interview" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Shifting Grounds of National Identity: An Interview with Liisa-Irmelen Liwata When a state is under attack and must defend itself, national identity becomes much clearer and more urgent. In contrast, in Finland, where we are not currently experiencing an immediate crisis, it is easier to question the role and necessity of national identity from such a privileged position. I’ve been reflecting on this in relation to places like Palestine and Ukraine, where national identity is deeply tied to survival and resistance. "Issue 33" "Interview" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Commoning Private Space: An Interview with Sandi Hilal This interview grows out of that ongoing process of working, thinking, and speaking together. While it takes the form of questions and answers on the page, in reality, it unfolded as a dialogue: her narratives of Palestine, her frameworks of hospitality and self-determination, and her reflections on Sweden intertwined with my own questions, concerns, and the shared struggles I see myself as part of. "Issue 33" "Interview" "" "Reyhaneh Mirjahani" /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Do We Know How to Read Contemporary Art Beyond the Binaries of Colonial Modernity? The practices of digging into the past to imagine more cosmopolitan or global futures often bypass a key question: Whose pasts are being invoked, and how is the contemporary actually being shared? In such reimaginations, the global south and its people are not just spatially homogenised but more strikingly, temporally displaced—imagined either as a reservoir, as tradition, or as some speculative, emancipated site of futurity that could save the world from the ills of capitalism. "Issue 33" "Research paper" "" "Mansi Kashatria" /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly (Hi)story of Lies: A Review of Claudia Pagès Rabal’s ‘ALJUB’ *ALJUB* is a thoughtful and enjoyable provocation, bringing together sensorial pleasure and a space for the expansion of critical thought. In doing so, it also projects onto broader conversations about the politics of language, its evolution and uses, and how colonial power shapes it in its own favour – how narratives are structured to legitimise specific histories while erasing others. "Issue 33" "Review" "" "Alba Folgado" /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Black Joy™ in the White Cube: A Review of ‘When We See Us’ The struggle and violence that When We See Us attempts to circumvent is not self-inflicted. The exhibition as a format presents liberal humanism’s trajectory, highlighting how it is, at its foundation, a vehicle for a particular genre of being. To highlight joy through liberal humanist grammars contributes to this trajectory. In times of concurrent genocides, in an effort to interrupt liberal humanism, it would be more honest to acknowledge and take a critical position against it. "Issue 33" "Review" "" "Mmabatho Thobejane" /issue-33//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Theology of the Image: Unbiblifying the Sacred To revisit these images today—historical, archival, and contemporary—is to confront multiple temporalities: the gaze of missionary projection, the habitual and the foreseeable. These layers coexist, sometimes always in tension, revealing the land’s persistence beyond imposed narratives. Unbiblifying is not about erasure; it is about recognizing the sacred not as revelation but as habit, not as myth but as presence. "Issue 33" "Essay" "" "Ahmed Alaqra" /issue-32//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Women’s Uprising and the Latin American Film Collectives of the 1970s and 1980s Amidst this uprising, several feminist film collectives emerged, adding to this momentum by making films and videos that disrupted the representations of women on screen, challenged their seclusion from the public sphere, and both fuelled and documented feminist campaigns and events. Despite the magnitude and significance of feminist cinema, its influence remains largely unspoken. "Issue 32" "Essay" "" "Lorena Cervera" /issue-32//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Cultivating Resistance: An Interview with Nishtha Jain In her most recent work, *Inquilab Di Kheti* (Farming the Revolution, 2024), which is also her most ambitious, Nishtha traces the year-long farmers movement (2020-21) against the [three unjust farm laws](https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1654007) announced by the Indian Government in June 2020\. Nishtha’s film opens up the everyday textures and rhythms of this massive and ultimately successful movement. "Issue 32" "Interview" "" "Ananya Parikh" /issue-32//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Making Friends Across Time: A Conversation Between Margarita Athanasiou and Lorena Juan Drawing from personal and inherited rituals of listening and transmission, Athanasiou approaches channeling as a method of research and self-making, a way to attend to what remains inaudible. Voices treats the body as an instrument of transmission, an interface through which stories, desires, and ghosts circulate. The result is an unstable cosmology of voices that blur the line between belief and authorship, revealing how history itself might speak through us. "Issue 32" "Interview" "" "Margarita Athanasiou, Lorena Juan" /issue-32//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial: Film as Memory, Film as Resistance Film as Memory, Film as Resistance, co-edited by Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya, and Danai Anagnostou, gathers six commissioned texts exploring cinema’s role in shaping migration narratives, documenting resistance, addressing caste and social exclusion, and tracing feminist and collective filmmaking across India, Latin America, and Europe. "Issue 32" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya, Danai Anagnostou" /issue-32//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Futures Held Together by Memory: A Review of Jyoti Nisha’s ‘Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Now and Then’ Bahujan narratives in media and popular culture are invariably mitigated through a savarna gaze that disregards Bahujans as people with agency, complexity, and vibrant histories of resistance. In such a milieu, Jyoti Nisha undertakes the immense and multifaceted task of unpacking the historical denial of Bahujan stories in media and popular culture, interrogating how history and mythology collude with contemporary violence. "Issue 32" "Review" "" "Dr. Swati Kamble" /issue-32//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Memory and the Fractured Image: A Review of Alaa Mansour’s ‘Aïnata’ *Aïnata* (2018), shot in South Lebanon, is the debut documentary by the Lebanese research-based artist and filmmaker, Alaa Mansour. The memories being reconstituted in the film are those of Aïnata, a town in South Lebanon nestled within olive and tobacco farms, plagued for decades by Israeli occupation and violence. "Issue 32" "Review" "" "Shams Hanieh" /issue-32//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Tracing Hazaras in Iranian Cinema: Historical Perspectives and Reflections Art functions both as representation and as a tool for shaping society. Independent Iranian cinema could have offered an alternative narrative to the official one, defended Afghan migrants against exclusionary policies, upheld their human dignity, and fostered a more realistic understanding among Iranians. Instead, the Afghan individual has rarely been a concern in Iranian society. "Issue 32" "Essay" "" "Mustafa Karimi" /issue-31//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Language, Rituality & Technology: An Interview with Pedro Favaron The Shipibo-Konibo are an Indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon whose spiritual, artistic, and medicinal practices are profoundly intertwined with a vision of the universe as a web of living energies. Their knowledge is transmitted through songs, visions, master plants, and symbolic designs that operate as technologies of healing and communication with the non-human world. "Issue 31" "Interview" "" "Renzo Signori" /issue-31//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly An Anti-Archive of the Present: An Interview with Jood AlThukair I think it scares me as a researcher to make all these claims, and then you do the fieldwork and find out it’s not as easy as you thought; you can’t put humans into boxes, and you certainly can’t enforce any of these notions onto them. "Issue 31" "Interview" "" "Fatima AlJarman" /issue-31//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Dreaming of Liberation: An Interview with Lola Olufemi I think of how many people are not able to be involved in social movements because of their own disability or their caring responsibilities, or the way that forms of social violence take away their capacity, or their ability to fight that social violence, because they're simply trying to stay alive. "Issue 31" "Interview" "" "Anna Karima “AK” Wane" /issue-31//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Trans Body in Venice: A Critique of Universalising Transness There is no universal ‘the’ trans body. Where does this article ‘the’ come from and what does it do? To us it seems that to look at something through the lens of ‘the trans body’ is claiming to know something that is situated in some imagined universal trans body – ultimately projecting one’s own body as that universal human in the trans context; the same universal human that the work claims to critically dismantle. White, non-disabled, thin, masculine and middle-class. "Issue 31" "Review" "" "Camille Auer, niko wearden" /issue-31//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Frontlines of Power: Sonic Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo The story of the Democratic Republic of Congo isn’t just about coups or Cold War power plays – it’s also a story told through rhythm, resistance, and reinvention. *Soundtrack to a Coup d’État* invites us to see music not as something that plays in the background of history, but as a key player in it – used by empires, reclaimed by artists, and still resonating in the voices of those who won’t be silenced. "Issue 31" "Research paper" "" "Diego Menjíbar Reynés" /issue-31//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On the Cusp: the Underrepresentation of Somali-Finnish Youth in Finland’s Artistic Spaces Their perseverance signals that the underrepresentation of Somali voices is not a reflection of lack of interest but of barriers that can and will be dismantled. As their presence grows, so too does the possibility of a cultural landscape that is not only more inclusive but also more honest about the histories, languages, and identities that it is made up of. "Issue 31" "Essay" "" "Mariam Osman" /issue-31//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly How Stone is Made to Disappear: Notes from Sokndal In Sokndal, southern Norway, humans have been digging the earth for generations. First for iron, then for ilmenite – mineral, black, heavy ilmenite. Titanium-iron oxide pulled from the mountain’s dark seams to make the whitest of whites.. "Issue 31" "Essay" "" "Joss Allen" /issue-31//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Mine That’s Not Ours: Land, Labor and Resistance in Armenia’s Syunik Region On January 31st, workers at the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC) in Armenia’s southern Syunik region launched a wildcat strike to demand safer working conditions and adequate wages. Unprecedented in scale since Armenia’s independence, the eleven-day strike was nothing short of revolutionary, as over 2000 workers self-organized in defiance of corporate authority. "Issue 31" "Essay" "" "Gayané Ghazaryan" /issue-30//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Art in Critical Condition: A Review of BAK & Jonas Staal’s ‘Climate Propagandas Congregation’ The notion of public intellectualism as a public good that ultimately benefits society seems to have been abandoned, while popular social media platforms have become a means of delivering finely tuned messaging, instrumentalising users and leveraging the interests of the “vectoralist class” who own them. As the critical arts sector adapts to the current challenging conditions, many will be paying close attention to Staal and BAK’s next moves. "Issue 30" "Review" "" "Sumugan Sivanesan" /issue-30//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Storm Is Already Here: A Review of ‘5th OFF-Biennale Budapest’ Moving away from the cool conceptualism common in biennials, the 5th edition boldly embraces anger, sadness, and euphoria. Presenting a diverse range of works that reflect the struggles of marginalized communities while also offering survival strategies, resilient tactics, and hopeful narratives, the biennale features artists from Hungary and Central-Eastern Europe, as well as international voices, creating a compelling blend of regional and global perspectives. This diversity aims not just to raise awareness but to cultivate empathy and solidarity. "Issue 30" "Review" "" "Flóra Gadó" /issue-30//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Languages of Resistance: An Interview with Amol K. Patil Amol Patil’s work addresses the harsh realities faced by the Dalit community, focusing on the lives of people living in Mumbai’s chawls and working as sanitation workers and manual scavengers. His sculptures, paintings, performances, and archival work strongly portray the deprivation of basic human needs – body, skin, touch, access to clean water, food, and land – and the brutal, animalistic existence they are forced to live in. He makes us see a community that remains invisible in the shadow of the city’s towering progress. "Issue 30" "Interview" "" "Pranita Thorat" /issue-30//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Normality That Should Not Exist: An Interview with Rebecca Simons & Aija Svensson I cannot forgive the actions of abusers because if you’re an adult and you abuse little children because you are traumatised yourself, it can’t be justified in any way. By creating this project, I feel we, the women in the family, are taking the power back. It’s not the abuser controlling what we can and cannot say. That is an important feeling for me. "Issue 30" "Interview" "" "Hanna Linnove" /issue-30//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Navigating Displacement: Mapping Exile and Memory Along Artistic Routes The relationship we have now as cultural practitioners who met again in exile is far more personal than it ever was. We share a deep trauma and a general concern that automatically breaks the formal and professional barriers. We also share an aggressively active survival instinct that sometimes hinders us from being as collective as we used to be or as we would like to be. The urgency of survival, however, does not diminish the impact of the shared trauma. "Issue 30" "Essay" "" "Rahiem Shadad" /issue-30//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Seven Beings, Three Returned in Pieces: The Tragedy of Balgatar *“When all seven were taken, we went to the local militia.”* *“We begged for mercy. We pleaded for our sons.”* *“We placed our turbans at their feet. The women laid down their chadars.”* *“We thought they would spare them.”* *“We thought they could not be this cruel.”* *“But they are worse than we ever imagined.”* "Issue 30" "Essay" "" "Hazaran Rahim Dad" /issue-29//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Whose Imaginary? Coptic Intellectuals and the Question of Subjectivity The collapse of the Assad regime and HTS’s rise in Syria have revived debates in Egypt and the region, over the fragile status of religious minorities, particularly Copts, long caught between authoritarianism and Islamist extremism. But when freed from such choices, what kind of worlds do they imagine? In this paper, Ismail Fayed explores this question through the life histories and reflections of two prominent Coptic intellectuals, Salama Musa and Louis Awad. "Issue 29" "Research paper" "" "Ismail Fayed" /issue-29//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On Bulldozer Politics: An Interview with Léopold Lambert & Shivangi Mariam Raj Bulldozers, often seen as neutral tools of industrial demolition, are instruments of territorial domination, urban redevelopment, and political suppression. Yet within these acts of destruction, counter-narratives emerge—poetry, mourning, and collective remembrance—that reclaim agency in the face of state-sanctioned ruination. If ruination is a strategy of power, it is also a site of resistance. "Issue 29" "Interview" "" "Omer Mohamed Gorashi" /issue-29//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Art is a Revolutionary Power: An Interview with Teemu Mäki The role of the artists’ associations/unions in cultural politics is even more important when new legislation, guidelines or practices are proposed. If the artists’ associations are not convincing and actively participating in the negotiations about legislation, nobody else will look after their interests. "Issue 29" "Interview" "" "Triinu Soikmets" /issue-29//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Mourning from a Distance: A Review of Pradeepan Raveendran’s ‘Soundless Dance’ In his remarkable 2019 debut feature film Soundless Dance, Raveendran narrates the horror of the Vanni genocide (2008-2009) through two physically and politically vastly different places. Thousands of kilometers apart, both lands are bridged by a young refugee who sleepwalks through them, neatly weaving them into a single landscape that is inhabited by a torn, oppressed and uprooted people who are seeking stability, safety and a future across these grounds. "Issue 29" "Review" "" "Sinthujan Varatharajah" /issue-29//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Subliminal Spaces & the (Re)Collecting of Identity: A Review of Uzair Amjad’s The Terrain Between History, in the work of Amjad, is incomplete without memory and the collection of subliminal voices within the annals of time. Memory is not restricted to the singular phenomenon of evoking nostalgia, but is a significant conduit in Amjad’s work used to help construct and situate oneself in the present moment. "Issue 29" "Review" "" "Saher Sohail" /issue-29//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Queering Hamas: A Colonial Weapon Musa Shadeedi examines how the feminisation and queering of Palestinian resistance in Gaza are used as tools of justifying genocide and occupation. By situating this tactic within its historical colonial and anti-Islamic context, Shadeedi exposes the contradictions inherent in these narratives. "Issue 29" "Essay" "" "Musa Shadeedi" /issue-29//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Disrupting Complicity: Students Organising for Palestine in Finland The opposition is not only between institutions and student activists—it also exists within our movement, manifesting in differing strategies. Should we focus on direct, visible actions or institutional processes? Should we shame the university publicly or appeal to its conscience? These approaches are not mutually exclusive—they reinforce each other. "Issue 29" "Essay" "" "Students for Palestine Finland" /issue-29//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Zág Trees, Forest Spirits, and the Settlers: A Conversation with Xokleng Kin A conversation with Isabel and Carl Gakran about the Zág (Araucaria), an indigenous tree threatened with extinction. We talked about their project (Instituto Zág), Indigenous climate justice and the intersection between the Palestinian and the (Brazilian) Indigenous struggles. "Issue 29" "Essay" "" "Sanabel Abdelrahman" /issue-28//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Alienation, Authenticity, and the Human Scale: An Interview with Stan Douglas Photography is an inherently uneven way of viewing. For centuries, there has been a desire to identify with that apparatus in the West, and for mysterious reasons, still to me, as a way to identify with the technology and disavow the messiness of human vision, which is pretty much based on vision, which is very much easily distracted, very much individualized. "Issue 28" "Interview" "" "Ali Akbar Mehta" /issue-28//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Dance of Intimacy, Ambition and Despair: A Review of Saulė Bliuvaitė’s Toxic *Toxic* mirrors the spirits of a society learning to navigate freedom while haunted by an unresolved past. ​​Here, the idea of the West glimmers like a distant oasis—a place of glossy dreams and bright promises that never quite materialise, as for many, those dreams soon meet harsh reality. "Issue 28" "Review" "" "Valentina Černiauskaitė" /issue-28//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Listening to the World: A Geopolitical Lens on the Gwangju Biennale The main exhibition, “an operatic exhibition about the space we live in”, is housed in the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall. Its galleries present significant challenges due to their modular white walls and vast areas to fill. This is likely why the main exhibition includes works by 72 artists from 30 countries. The 15th Gwangju Biennale is not the only large-scale exhibition to challenge the concept of a “static exhibition,” but it stands out for its innovative approach. The main exhibition shifts focus from the dominant sense of sight to other senses, particularly listening, based on the visitors’ mobility. Constructed as “a narrative,” the venues connect musical and visual forms. "Issue 28" "Review" "" "Joonas Pulkkinen" /issue-28//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Thinking with the Forest: Roots and Routes for New Knowledges Dialogue between two or more processes involves transformation at a systemic and structural scale. Other processes at work between the microbes, water molecules, and chemicals the human body encounters in the soil must be reduced to the physics of contact, the chemistry of ionic and covalent bonds, or the ecology of microbial populations in contact. Machine learning is off to a good headstart; how about studying more-than-human assemblages as they interact? "Issue 28" "Research paper" "" "huiying ng-lou" /issue-28//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly In Attempts to (Un)forge Present: An Interview with Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind So Palestine being temporarily suspended is the basis for how we conceptualize things between the catastrophes of the past, the Nakba, and everything else, and the ambitions for a state that seems to constantly move further and further into the future. And that means that the present remains sort of an unsettled purgatory. "Issue 28" "Interview" "" "Rania Atef" /issue-28//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Painting the Self and the Close Ones: An Interview with Joel Slotte How to transform smell through a painted picture? And what ethical questions are at hand when depicting a friend in a picture? Joel Slotte has, in the past decade, developed a style of painting that reminds of numerous pop culture references and recognizable aesthetics which has been called “slotte-like” and ”slotte-esque” in Finnish art criticism. As an artist, Slotte works across drawing and sculpture in addition to painting, as the different mediums emerge in surprising ways. "Issue 28" "Interview" "" "Eero Karjalainen" /issue-28//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Queercrip Reflection on the Politics of Holding Tight vs. Being Nearby Being nearby might appear effortless, non-spectacular, and quiet. In dailiness, it fleshes out as a nonapparent, voyeuristically undetectable choreography of multiple consensual labours and commitments sore and exhausted with recurring waves of critical awareness about the dynamic injustices of the dominant world. Being nearby is not easy. I imagine its power and radical potential accumulating exactly in its uneasy, laborious nonapparentness: its working might remain undetected for the normative structures and appear inconsequential for the gargantuan dominant world. "Issue 28" "Essay" "" "Anastasia (A) Alevtin" /issue-28//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Who Gets to Live? — On Archives and Kurdish Identity Formation How I come to imagine freedom in the context of the Kurdish struggle is my own form of un-learning. It is an un-learning that has left third-degree burns as I grieve the many magical possibilities I imagined as a child. Firstly, there was always an imagining of a return. Then there was an imagining of a gentler story - one not so filled with the relentless cycle of violence. One where Kurdish women weren’t killed by their own families, their husbands, or whoever it was that imprisoned Öcalan. The third was access. Being able to access my grandparents at any will. "Issue 28" "Essay" "" "Êvar Hussayni" /issue-27//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Bulgarian Pavillion’s ‘The Neighbours’: Bridging the Memory Archipelago of the Bulgarian Communist Past Bulgaria as a space and a nation had a profound impact on the way I embody myself and shaped and reshaped my sense of national identity. To this day, I remember sitting on my grandmother’s lap in 2006 on New Year's Eve in my house, awaiting the beginning of the new chapter in Bulgarian history—our ascension to the European Union. For a country that was not a direct participant in the colonial project of Western Europe and so often described as a part of the “margins” of Europe, this geography, which I was living in, would finally be put on the world map. Or so I believed. "Issue 27" "Review" "" "Bayr(y)am Mustafa Bayr(y)amali" /issue-27//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Tender Meandering, Daydreaming in Archives: An Interview with Xiao Zhiyu I use the exhibition as a medium, both as a context that guides my research and the creation of works as a documentation of this process. It is always an unknown process, I can’t decide what I encounter, and therefore, the selection of the works becomes very intuitive and, hence, uncertain. But of course, decisions are always made, so the ghosts arrive with them. There isn’t any exhibition, archive, or museum that is not haunted by ghosts, it’s all about one’s intentions and a certain awareness. "Issue 27" "Interview" "" "Vinayak" /issue-27//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly We Change: On the Processes of Iran’s One Million Signature Campaign These methods, besides protesting and street face-to-face talking and gathering signatures, were necessary to undo the normality of discrimination and patriarchy. The one million signature campaign brought a reviving soul into Iran's feminist movement and civil society by bringing the challenge to homes, families, streets, and every public space, such as buses, parks, and workspaces. Face-to-face conversations would bring deep conversations, many personal stories and many more people to join the movement. "Issue 27" "Essay" "" "Niloofar Golkar" /issue-27//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Anarchitecture of Desire: A Review of Resonance Beyond Escape – Qworkaholics Anonymous III The experiences narrated in the exhibition seek to reshape these power dynamics and effect a decolonization from a Western anthropological gaze that is as exhausting and draining as any other toxic work environment. But is this comparison even adequate given that the Qworkaholics’ relationship with the outside world is suffused with oppression and social mistreatment at the most basic (desire, instinct, sensibility) level? How can these relationships be reshaped if burnout is at the very core of one’s existence, not just a part of it? "Issue 27" "Review" "" "Santa Hirša" /issue-27//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Problematising ‘Right-wing Extremism’: Analysing White Supremacy and Government Responses to Racist Violence Prejudiced, racist attitudes are, of course, still a part of this problem, but crucially, they are just one part. Global white supremacy is a far bigger structure – a political and economic system that transcends national borders and shapes most of the world. Problematising it this way implies a need for much bigger solutions than simply educating people out of their prejudiced attitudes. It means completely restructuring – or indeed dismantling – those economic and political systems that maintain the supremacy of whites over non-whites. "Issue 27" "Research paper" "" "Rohan Stevenson" /issue-27//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Rethinking (Climate) Security Through Food: An Interview with Cooking Sections Cooking Sections’ recent visit to Finland was centred around the IHME Helsinki Commission 2024 Maaleipä Challenge, which invited home bakers, bakeries, restaurants, schools, and communities in Finland to create bread recipes that combine the well-being of land, water and people’s guts. Cooking Sections’ projects use food as a medium to question global food production and also confront the inequities within food systems. The core of their modus operandi is gathering the latest scientific knowledge by meeting researchers and experienced experts. "Issue 27" "Interview" "" "Ines Montalvao" /issue-27//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly From Periphery to Center: Deconstructing the Power Dynamics of Cultural Exchange **We cannot use geography as the perimeter for cultural exchange; instead, we should look at the space where the exchange takes place. Who is curating, producing and inviting these artists?** These are central questions defining whether the transference is cultural exchange or not. In this essay, I deconstruct the ‘power dynamics of cultural exchange’ from the perspective of Gambian and Senegalese artists and elaborate on how the room, respect, celebration, identity and negotiation play a pivotal role in cultural exchange. "Issue 27" "Essay" "" "Fatoumata Laisa Conde" /issue-26//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly From Human Hands to Machine Eyes: Retraining Computer Vision to “See” Technological systems are never purely automatic or devoid of humanity. Computer vision, like all types of AI, is a combination of human and machine agency that results in tools and worldviews that do not simply appear as if by magic. Despite efforts by big tech companies, including Amazon, the creator of AMT, to promote the false notion that AI is fully autonomous, these and many other crowdworkers demonstrate that the reality is far more complex. "Issue 26" "Research paper" "" "Bruno Moreschi" /issue-26//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Flow Festival: A Retrospective How will Flow Festival respond to criticisms about its relationships with its free workforce, security contractors, Helsinki Police and its Zionist holding company? Will it align with or distance itself from the actions and affiliations of its financial backers? "Issue 26" "Review" "" "Li Mullen, Sue Guevara" /issue-26//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Age of Flying: Youth’s Work and Dreams for the (Art) World They Need We want to talk about the world: about ecological rehabilitation, friendship, rage, fear, countercultures, rest, alternatives to the nuclear family, free love, the abolition of gender, the abolition of borders, music, food, the ocean, self-determination,... dreams. Do our dreams hold their anarchic potential after they leave the private and enter our work life? What if dreaming has begun to feel impossible for our generation? "Issue 26" "Essay" "" "Micol Curatolo" /issue-26//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Futures That Never Came Into Being: An Interview with Kajet Journal Editors Finally, someone was addressing the complicated questions around contemporary ‘Eastern Europeanness’ and what often felt like a misrepresentation, misunderstanding or complete omission of the region and its identity in the ‘Western’ discourse. Through *Kajet* – a Journal of Eastern European encounters – Laura and Petrică offer a space for speculative reformulation of Eastern European identities, narratives and imaginaries, as an attempt towards what they call ‘a representation without purity’. "Issue 26" "Interview" "" "Martina Šerešová" /issue-26//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On Personal and Imaginative Narratives Set at Sea: An Interview with Nastja Säde Rönkkö When experienced as an uninterrupted single-channel projection, they collectively transformed into a poetry book bound within a single cover. This collection of poetic videos invites the viewer to explore the delicate interplay between emotion and intellect, where the vastness of the sea becomes a metaphor for unspoken, uncontrollable desires—touching on themes of solitude, longing, and the deep connection between women and the sea. Observing these elements, I became eager to learn about the background and thought processes behind this work to better understand the emotional and conceptual depth of Nastja’s creative process. "Issue 26" "Interview" "" "Eveliina Tuulonen" /issue-26//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Reimagining Education: A Vision of Justice and Equity Every Dalit student getting an education in India is reclaiming their right to humanity, questioning those in power, and working towards dismantling these power structures. In this process, it is important to archive our experiences, express our views, and engage in an ongoing conversation on education systems as a tool for liberty. "Issue 26" "Essay" "" "Pranita Thorat" /issue-25//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly This High Ground of Neutrality: A Review of the ABSENCED Exhibition at Malmö City Library The extent of ongoing and increasing repression of artistic freedom in Germany had caught some of the visitors by surprise. With each story of censorship brought to ABSENCED, Germany’s otherwise strong frameworks for expressing political opinions and artistic creativity got called out. Moreover, with a minimum or no interference from the curator as well as the library staff in the choice of works sent in by the artists, ABSENCED created a platform for artists to freely articulate themselves and their rights to ultimate freedom of expression. "Issue 25" "Review" "" "Mansi Kashatria" /issue-25//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Space for Palestine: Between Science & Critical Climate Fiction As the voices calling for Palestinian freedom intensify by the day, it benefits this critical moment to examine possible exercises in re-thinking settler-colonial and postcolonial violence while imagining alternative futures. The Palestinian struggle for a liberated future necessitates borrowing from other cultures and traditions while carving out spaces for emboldening and empowering intersectionality. With that in mind, what potentialities of hope and resistance can be encapsulated under alternative imaginings of the (Palestinian) future? "Issue 25" "Essay" "" "Sanabel Abdelrahman" /issue-25//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Traces of Landscape Disturbances the disturbances that these works are tackling are not pervading in a grandiose manner of overwhelming catastrophes that are daily broadcasted over popular media. Instead, they appear as quiet signifiers of larger issues whose complexity remains opaque. In a way, they feel similar to glitch, as a temporary broken image in which precisely this rupture holds the troublesome message. This way, the expected pattern is broken, and the artist interferes with the existing paradigm in order to challenge its meaning fragmentally. "Issue 25" "Essay" "" "Irena Borić" /issue-25//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Looking for the In-between: An Interview with Diana Soria Hernandez Performance is a space for something else. I am interested in what can turn around words and enter through different senses without a rational filter. I believe we have less protection for gestures and less digestive capacity for actions. In that way, performance can creep into the audience through the rational walls, perhaps affecting the spectator in other ways. "Issue 25" "Interview" "" "Lois Armas" /issue-25//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Exploring Palestine’s Musical Heritage Before 1948: An interview with Nader Jalal A 15-year long project researching Arabic music in historic Palestine has unearthed many stories, records and musicians that have been lost, forgotten and suppressed after the Nakba. Headed by Nader Jalal, the Ramallah-based institute Nawa has not only collected this history, but brought it to a new life by organising concerts and recording albums. "Issue 25" "Interview" "" "Shayma Nader, Miia Laine" /issue-25//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Debut of Power, Politics, and Possibility: Reviewing Kinari’s full-length album ‘KATTAR KINNAR’ Kinari’s music is a radical sonic collision between her life in Delhi’s Khirki Extension in her lyrics and an intentional and intelligent reckoning with her Tamizh cultural and musical heritage through her use of parai drum beats, and gaan-inspired compositions. It is a raw and unflinching exploration of her life and is unapologetically transgressive. By blending streetwise lyrics with traditional rhythms, she creates a sound that is both familiar and revolutionary. "Issue 25" "Review" "" "Bhumika Saraswati, Mithran R. T. Samuel" /issue-25//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Radical Re-imagining of Visual Order Amid the Ongoing Genocide of Palestinians: A Review of ‘Against Abstraction’ An activation by Palestinian artists Maen Hammad, Dina Salem, Sari Tarazi, and Ahmad Alaqra was hosted at DoubleDummy, Arles, between July 1-7, 2024, during the opening week of the Rencontres d’Arles. It conveys a timeline of the ongoing genocide in Gaza using information shared via alternative messaging platforms like Telegram. "Issue 25" "Review" "" "Sheung Yiu" /issue-24//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Directing Helsinki’s Beloved Film Festival: An Interview with Anna Möttölä I met Anna Möttölä in early April, not long after she finished her seven-year term working as the executive director of L&A. Before that, I had mainly seen her introduce some of the films at the festival or lead some of the Q&As with filmmakers. In all that, something that shined through so clearly was how much she loves cinema and that, for her, this is not merely another job. I admire this quality, as I find it quite rare these days in people with higher institutional positions. Among the many things we discussed were what this job meant to her, the decision to leave it, the challenges and learning curves of the job, L&A as a political institution, and the struggles of running a festival in times of austerity. "Issue 24" "Interview" "" "Elham Rahmati" /issue-24//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Home Without Journey: A Review of Kiasma’s ‘Feels Like Home’ & Artsi’s ‘My Home Somewhere’ “Home” and “belonging” are peaceful, positive keywords that can cover up issues related to much less pleasant things, such as nationalism, racism, exclusion, housing commodification, power and control. "Issue 24" "Review" "" "Varvara Kobyshcha" /issue-24//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Continued Occupation of Western Sahara In 2022, I travelled to the occupied city of Laayoune with journalist Jacob Kushner to report on how Morocco’s government had weaponized the COVID-19 pandemic as another excuse to persecute Sahrawi independence activists. One of the tell-tale signs of the occupation is how the Moroccan flag is draped everywhere, to an extent not seen in Morocco. "Issue 24" "Essay" "" "Kang-Chun Cheng" /issue-24//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Surviving Unjust Lands; (im)Possible Futures In this essay, I take ‘disasters’ as thresholds to explain that nothing is natural about them but the underlying infrastructures and injustices that push people and beings to the brink of extinction. I further emphasise that the self-organized mutual aid networks demonstrate the necessity and potential for building alternative futures outside the deepening systems of oppression, racism, and discrimination that these disasters exacerbate. "Issue 24" "Essay" "" "Merve Bedir" /issue-24//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Our Bodies Protest on Our Behalf: A Review of ‘Laia Abril – On Mass Hysteria’ If the problems that individuals face in their personal lives are rooted in systemic issues, then it is unrealistic to expect them to find lasting solutions solely through individual self-improvement efforts. Individual change is not simply a matter of personal effort but is also shaped by the broader social conditions that individuals find themselves in. Abril’s work highlights this hypocrisy of the oppressor in a perverted patriarchal society in which women are blamed and ridiculed for showing symptoms of distress—Mass Hysteria. "Issue 24" "Review" "" "Sheung Yiu" /issue-24//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly I’m not NAINSUKH, Nainsukh isn’t us: Artistic Process as a Cinematic Device *Nainsukh* partakes of a fundamental contradiction common to movies dramatizing an artist’s work. On a basic level, the film is a self-confessed fiction based on paintings that have a concrete existence in the world. Recreating Nainsukh’s compositions with real people in real locations, however, its pro-filmic re-enactments possess an ontological reality that surpasses those of the events and personalities portrayed in the pictures. Nainsukh’s conversion of life into paintings and Dutta’s reconversion of these paintings back to life, but with a different shade of meaning, help install a critical distance between the two media. "Issue 24" "Research paper" "" "Sourav Roy" /issue-24//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Locked in Atrocity Image: The Ruination of Muslim Space and Body in India and Kashmir Ruination *is* the foundational violence that established the Indian nation-state. Long perfected in Indian-Occupied Kashmir over the last seven decades, camouflaged under the optics of democracy and development, it is ruination that has accelerated India’s settler-colonial project, setting the layout of demographic engineering across the region. "Issue 24" "Essay" "" "Shivangi Mariam Raj" /issue-23//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial: Where We Are Now Is Laying the Groundwork For What Is to Come How can we adopt an expression of pessimism that sees suffering and our unavoidable limitations on the one hand while also motivating a hopeful critical position that stands firmly against oppression, anywhere and for anyone? "Issue 23" "Essay" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-23//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly My Existence in My Homeland is Resistance Heba Dbaa, a teacher from Gaza, gives an account of her experience living amid Israel’s unfolding genocide of Palestinians since October 7, 2023. "Issue 23" "Essay" "" "Heba Dbaa" /issue-23//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Disrupting Rhetoric, Defining Tenor: An Interview with Tanvi Mishra Challenging the notion of the singularity of meaning and traversing the zones of fidelity and accuracy of an image, Tanvi Mishra switched to image-making after pursuing an economics degree, realising that the issues that interested her in the social sciences, like policy-making and social justice, were more imaginatively possible through image-making. Our conversation follows her keynote titled Translational / Transnational : world-building beyond bordered identities for the Out of the Metropolis seminar Artists and Curators Working Together: How and With Whom? organised at The Finnish Museum of Photography in mid-February. "Issue 23" "Interview" "" "Vidha Saumya" /issue-23//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Processual (re)presentations of ‘knowing’ without beginning(s) nor end(ings) To me, Ikeda’s work represents a historic precipice, a zone beyond which artistic practice becomes increasingly processual and concentrated on its world-building, entangled within its own encoded data logic. Beyond this, any mode of output as exhibitable objects within exhibition spaces simply becomes representative of the work and not the work itself. The work then lies in the audience’s or participants’ willing entanglement within the intricate network of the artist’s densely populated research space. "Issue 23" "Review" "" "Ali Akbar Mehta" /issue-23//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Seascape of Imagination Through artistic research, Seascape of Imagination is an attempt to unravel the intricate ties between South Asian transnational craftmanship practice and the nuanced processes of decoration and labour, emphasising the boat engineering craftsmanship that survived colonial and nationalist modernity. A significant aspect of this project is challenging the prevailing modern distinctions between art and craft, especially when contextualising the act of painting as a decorative aspect of the shipbuilding done by members of the fishing community. "Issue 23" "Research paper" "" "Behzad Khosravi Noori" /issue-23//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly What it means to survive a war, with dignity I’ve been reporting from Manipur since June 2023. From the very beginning, I could understand that though women were contributing as much as men in facing the brunt of the war, their roles never received enough acknowledgment nor were their views taken into account while making important decisions. As an outsider, I could see that women leaders had a much more pragmatic method and manner of dealing with most situations, yet they found no place on the leadership table. This, I was made to understand, stems from a society that is founded on a patriarchal structure, yet a visible reluctance of present-day male-dominated organizations to relinquish space to women during a crucial time as this continues. "Issue 23" "Essay" "" "Greeshma Kuthar" /issue-23//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly These Conditions (Are Only Worsening): An Interview with Adelita Husni-Bey On social change, collective processes and radical pedagogy, with pandemics as a backdrop. "Issue 23" "Interview" "" "Alba Folgado" /issue-23//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Against Friendship: On the Dark Side of Professional Intimacies Is it problematic to mix friendships and professional connections, emphasising the benefits of helping friends since they will eventually feel obliged to help in return? How did such a neoliberal manipulative trick that openly instrumentalizes intimacy become acceptable? Is “friendly, warm hearted” corruption and favouritism legitimised? Am I abusing my position of power by preferring to work with friends? How does the professional environment change if a friendship ends abruptly and unpleasantly? "Issue 23" "Essay" "" "Adel Kim" /issue-22//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Shared Responsibility: Mutual Support and Allyship Amongst non-eu/eea Art Professionals Sometimes it feels like the system is designed for you to fail. It seemed that the only way to understand and interact with this system was by gathering as much information as possible from those in similar situations. So our peer group became a place where we could all get together and share our collective knowledge on how to deal with residence permits and other immigration processes as artists, art students, and arts workers. "Issue 22" "Interview" "" "Patricia Carolina, Paola Jalili" /issue-22//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Interior Designs, Drains, Poetic Approaches: An Interview with Artor Jesus Inkerö And isn’t this something that we keep saying, that we are tired of discussing these very rudimentary questions about what is and what isn’t queer? We can go back and forth, we can ask presidential candidates what they think, and we might get some answers, but those answers are really not all that intriguing to us. I think we already know what we are! "Issue 22" "Interview" "" "nadiye" /issue-22//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Accounting Otherwise: Non-Binary Book-Keeping & Fugitive Public Financing The practice of non-binary accounting is not new. Friends who “anexactly” rotate covering tabs for food and drink at bars, who do not keep a precise ledger delineating who owes what to whom, are constantly engaging in small-scale non-binary accounting practices. This text wonders whether a more rigorous formalization of the practice of non-binary accounting that is specifically geared towards subverting and dismantling binary accounting practices could be “scaled up”, so that communities and public institutions “splitting the tab” for large scale social initiatives can transact “anexactly”. "Issue 22" "Research paper" "" "Muindi Fanuel Muindi" /issue-22//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Militant Cameras and Audiovisual Memories: A Review of ‘Trailblazers’ The group exhibition Trailblazers: Feminisms, Camera in Hand and Archive over the Shoulder maps out the history of second-wave French feminisms and the interconnected struggles through the founding of the Centre Audiovisuel de Simone de Beauvoir. Curated by Nicole Fernández Ferrer and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, the exhibition structures around the archives of the Centre Audiovisuel de Simone de Beauvoir, which are set in dialogue with works and contributions by over 40 artists and collectives. "Issue 22" "Review" "" "Sini Rinne-Kanto" /issue-22//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Microaggressions & Everyday Racism in Finland’s Daycare System Educational institutions, just like all other institutions, can be considered microcosms of society, where prevailing attitudes and values manifest. Consequently, as racism permeates Finnish society, it also seeps into Finnish daycares. "Issue 22" "Essay" "" "Ndéla Faye" /issue-22//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly No Country for Art Workers This gives a more exhaustive picture of the Italian context; indeed, if, on the one hand, there is a total lack of rules and government measures to protect cultural work, on the other, many art workers themselves do not have the critical thinking attitude to analyze their own conditions and to claim their rights. The rise of neoliberal logic does not help this lack of political awareness, inasmuch as it fosters competition rather than solidarity and makes people more isolated and vulnerable. "Issue 22" "Essay" "" "Elena Mazzi, Annalisa Pellino" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Violent Septembers: An Armenian Perspective Amid the Ongoing Occupation While azerbaijan was bombing Armenians with israeli and turkish UAVs and paying bonuses to turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries for beheading Armenians, the “international community,” whatever that’s supposed to mean at this point, expressed lousy words of “concern,” and displayed a nauseous stance of both-sideism, devoid of any tangible action. The existence of this unrecognised republic and its indigenous population wasn’t legitimate enough for world powers to lift a finger. "Issue 21" "Essay" "" "Gayané Ghazaryan" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Between Mud, Matter and Mother: A Conversation with Dineo Seshee Bopape "Issue 21" "Interview" "" "Lotta Petronella" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Colonial Continuity in Finland: Cultural Appropriation of Sámi Design Cultural appropriation is not a new phenomenon in the Sámi context. Sámi handicrafts, duodji, have been and are still the subject of cultural appropriation. One of the central issues of cultural appropriation is that it gives the power to determine and decide on cultural objects to an actor outside the community, which weakens the self-determination of the community to manage the design themselves. "Issue 21" "Essay" "" "Lotta Hagelin" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Whose Dreams, Whose Futures?: A Review of GIBCA 2023 "Issue 21" "Review" "" "Eero Karjalainen" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Selling the Nordic Miracle In the dimension of equity-realism, it is necessary to break the trend leading towards a further entrenching of elitism or exclusivity. In a time of profound recession and social inequality, it seems economically and socially urgent that organisations and institutes, those that use their association with the state and those who choose a path less oriented towards national promotion, learn from the actual experimentation on financial models and choose to distribute and support the diverse economic ecologies of grassroots art organisations and independent artists. "Issue 21" "Essay" "" "Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Egle Oddo, Timo S. Tuhkanen" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Biennial in the Baltic Sea Region: Groans, Wishes, and Art Jargon This text focuses on topics related to HB23’s thematic questions and experiments mediated by curator Joasia Krysa in the biennial and her partly experimental approach with curatorial collaborators. These are questions about how the mediation of art is inextricably linked with the possibility of political and environmental agency and awareness. They delve into the political and ecological environment of the Baltic Sea, its historical significance as potential material within the context of the Helsinki Biennial, and the kinds of geopolitical and historical questions that biennials might confront in the Baltic Sea area. "Issue 21" "Review" "" "Joonas Pulkkinen" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Bearing Chronic Pain: What Can Art Offer? Chronic pain is a notion created within biomedicine that reduces it to a biological process—dismissing the cultural, social, economic, political, and technological relations that shape it. As might be expected, this standpoint has not proven fruitful for its bearers or society at large. Bear in mind that chronic pain differs from a general understanding of pain because it is not merely a physical experience but has an all-encompassing sensory and emotional effect, as well as long-term transformations in the intellectual and agential capacities of the ones that bear it. "Issue 21" "Research paper" "" "Eva Tordera Nuño" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly To Carve A Tunnel Through Yourself: A Conversation with Saara Ekström I see returning themes, such as the fragility of our lives, cycles of growth and death, and the destructive and nourishing power of time. I’ve moved from filming organic materials, rotting plants and blooming flowers to more complex matters, such as architectural structures, buildings with historical significance and buried meanings. Even if they seem far apart at first glance, these works circle the same topics: memory, oblivion, change, collapse, and growth. "Issue 21" "Interview" "" "Taru Elfving" /issue-21//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Swiss Cheese ``` Please don’t talk physics to me. The people are tired and money is made off emotion. Another day, day, day, then a sliver of time. ``` "Issue 21" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Yanita Georgieva" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Where Should We Go? No Place Is Safe in Gaza I am terrified, devastated, and drained. Every massacre makes me believe that this world does not deserve our dreams. Israel kills us in full view of the world, yet no one is doing anything to stop this genocide. The West's presidents supported Israel and funded them to kill us. This war was not going to continue without the West and Arab leader's consent. "Issue 20" "Essay" "" "Noura Selmi" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The curse of Hephaestus ``` I wrote a song for a withering flower on the balcony, without knowing what beauty is. A man stood inside the mirror in my room, measuring corners of fat on my chest. We played hopscotch; you said I could use both legs if one of them was dead. ``` "Issue 20" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Abhishek Anicca" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Performances of Peace, Geometries of Friendships: A Review of Survival Kit 14 Both the general and the art communities in Latvia can be described as being fairly closed off to uncomfortable questions and even to the role of art in addressing ideologically and politically charged issues. For these reasons alone, Survival Kit must be considered not just another glamour art event but an event that seeks to radically redefine the role of art in the local cultural space. "Issue 20" "Review" "" "Santa Hirša" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Silence, (Feigned) Indifference and Kinship: A Review of African Express—Short Station A common thread in the works curated point to silences, known or unknown, around topics such as capital punishment, extraction, human rights, pleasure, and more. This reminds me of what is made clear about silence in Audre Lorde’s 1977 essay on “The Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action.” Whether we are silenced by others or silence ourselves, it is our own voice, and how we use it that will eventually free us in the end. "Issue 20" "Review" "" "Mariam Osman" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Patiently Sifting through the Remnants of History: A Conversation with Sasha Huber The stapling became the stitching of the colonial wound. The important transition that took place was in calling this work pain-tings, which includes both - the power of the pain that is inflicted and, at the same time, a way to heal transgenerational wounds that continue to be there. I realised quite soon that I was using my energy in the wrong way, as in the case of my first portraiture series titled Shooting Back from 2004. I wanted to stop creating portraits of people who did so much damage because the end result is a portrait of that person, and I don't want to look at them anymore. "Issue 20" "Interview" "" "Marcia Harvey Isaksson" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Dancefloor is a Radicalising Kind of Moment: A Conversation with Ani Phoebe I felt we were living in a crisis within a crisis. I'm not very optimistic about the current systems that we're living in and how much progress we are making in terms of getting out of this system. Still, the way that I deal with my disappointment and my despair is that I turn to music, underground art, and artist-activist communities. "Issue 20" "Interview" "" "Masha Glazunova" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Nurturing Seeds of Resistance: A Review of O Quilombismo at Berlin’s HKW HKW is in an exciting phase of ‘reconstruction’ following the appointment of the new director, Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, in June 2021. The news of the Cameroon-born curator’s engagement as the institute’s first nonwhite director sent a bolt of excitement through Berlin’s art scene, where large institutions are led by white, largely male directors, and where artists of color, often instrumentalized to garner a progressive title for the city, still face incidences of institutional racism. "Issue 20" "Review" "" "Shaunak Mahbubani" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On Plants and Planetary Names: A Conversation with Emanuele Coccia The names we have are not enough. We have to invent a new name. I don’t have a solution, but I know that we have to find a name. One of the points I make is that nowadays, we are in a situation where everybody’s saying we have to stay with or listen to this kind of multiplicity of proposals, the multiverse, and this is politically extremely naïve. If we accept that every name of the Earth and every conception of it is good, what do we do with climate deniers? "Issue 20" "Interview" "" "Joss Allen" /issue-20//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Digital Hate and the Othering of Pakistan’s Transgender Community What do a fashion designer, a youth empowerment YouTuber, and a right-wing politician have in common? In Pakistan, the answer is hatred of transgender people, and their battleground of choice is the internet. Historically, the South Asia region has been home to a visible, though marginalized, transgender/khawajasira community, and Pakistan has been one of the leading countries with the most progressive legislation on transgender rights. However, 2021 saw a surge in religious right-wing discourse against transgender rights in the country. "Issue 20" "Essay" "" "Hira Azmat" /issue-19//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The “I”s of Artistic Research The lyrical “I” lifts the confessional weight of the European sciences of psyche and spirit that pressure the speaker of the artistic research text to disclose even the most minor or derailing failures of the project so as to follow the “true” curve of the journey. I confess. I think I have done this myself, and the unsatisfying feeling it left me with is what is driving this text. "Issue 19" "Research paper" "" "Rebecca Close" /issue-19//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Leaving Minimal Imprints on the Landscape: A Conversation with Joasia Krysa The second edition of the biennial marked a departure from the first, navigating different geopolitical landscapes, timelines, budgets, curatorial and organisational structures, and resources. The budget for the second edition of the Helsinki Biennial had initially been outlined before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Compounded with a post-covid economy and the wider impact on the art world, this all contributed to considerations for organising this edition. "Issue 19" "Interview" "" "Dahlia El Broul" /issue-19//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Open Wounds, Invisible Bodies: A Conversation with Liryc Dela Cruz And for westerners, this act of doing nothing is laziness. But when I go back to this memory, it’s actually the act of rest. This is when your body is connected with the ground, with the land, and with the soil to recharge you again. Because in the precolonial Philippines, the way their bodies were working was through reciprocity—the reciprocation of care and love with nature and the things around them. In this way of resting, when your body is on the ground doing nothing and just resting, you also give time to the environment and to the land to rest and heal. "Issue 19" "Interview" "" "Helia Hamedani" /issue-19//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Cinema and the Political Imaginary in Kirkuk *Cineholic*, in other words, is a film about cinema in a context in which the role of the medium has been to mediate between the Iraqi population and an almost constant state of conflict—first during the Iran-Iraq war, then the First Gulf War, then the Second, and finally the past twenty years of simmering civil unrest in the wake of the regime’s forced dismantlement by the US. "Issue 19" "Essay" "" "Natasha Marie Llorens" /issue-19//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Unforgotten Moon: Liberating Art from Guantánamo Bay The desire and urgency for them to be shared with a larger public remained a motivating factor in curating *The Unforgotten Moon*. Seeing Ahmed’s work in person, I was struck by the complexity and the capricious visual vocabulary of his paintings. With political currents and personal commentary running through symbolic landscapes, his work is a powerful insight into the conditions of the prison system and the psychological price of living inside it indefinitely. "Issue 19" "Essay" "" "Natasha Malik" /issue-19//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Self-Portrait of An Emergency ``` I feel at best when life escapes me. An ambulance rushing back and forth the scene. I want to curl up on helipad gravel & draw myself idle on an island of chalk. This habitat for crime ``` "Issue 19" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Jared Maxilom" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly There Are No Enfants Terribles Here: A Review of Generation 2023 In an art world obsessed with the urge to find the next new thing and benefit from it, can a sleek, high production value exhibition showcasing the work of 15 - 23 year old artists challenge the love-hate relationship with the youth? Generation 2023 is balanced and diverse, but its fixation on youth is double edged. "Issue 18" "Review" "" "Jaakko Uoti" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Anti-Racist Love in Sonya Lindfors’ ‘One Drop’ In what ways does ‘One Drop’, a performance developed and executed by racialized others in Finland and elsewhere, express love in its enactment of mutually transforming anti-racism communication? "Issue 18" "Review" "" "Leonardo Custódio" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Rewriting and Dreaming Afro Finnish History: A Conversation With Wisam Elfadl As community members and activists, we need to know how to work the system and how to turn our work into projects. In the case of this exhibition, I came to the museum with the confrontation that there is nothing about us Afro Finns in the museum, and we have the right to exist here. You have a gap, and I have an idea. "Issue 18" "Interview" "" "Shadia Rask" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly “For All Wars to Come”: An Interview with Noor Abed Can we turn folklore into a source of learning - a knowledge source that informs us about social struggles that otherwise go unnoticed by the powerful? "Issue 18" "Interview" "" "Adele Jarrar" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Innocence of (European) Instruments European modes of living and cultures have become globalised and naturalised, so much so that critical conversations around European traditions today focus more on questions of racial diversity in, say, orchestras, ensembles, and European music and dance schools rather than why and how European cultural productions have become such a global commodity and signifier for class and and *“civilisational”* ascend to begin with. "Issue 18" "Essay" "" "Sinthujan Varatharajah" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Feedback in Relation: On Friendship, Microcosms & Constructive Criticism How can we facilitate collective transfers of knowledge and support peer feedback practices in a transdisciplinary cohort? How can we cultivate learning communities where sites of authority are multiple and distributed? How to expand this learning in a microcosm to exist critically and together in the world? "Issue 18" "Essay" "" "Patrizia Costantin" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Embodied Curating: Attuning the Body From Artistic to Political Systems and structures that prescribe most societal functions today, including the production and presentation of art, have little consideration for bodies performing these functions. Let us acknowledge these disparities and allow them to guide our ways of being and acting ethically. "Issue 18" "Research paper" "" "Satu Herrala" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly in my own reign I suffered Two poems by Renia White "Issue 18" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Renia White" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Only Solidarity, Not Respectability, Can Topple Finland’s Dangerous Far-Right Government Our solidarity against Prime Minister Orpo’s far-right government doesn’t need to stop with other ethnic minorities but can act as a tool to bring everyone together, irrespective of background, who is set to suffer under the new regime—from the exploited worker to the overworked parent, from the retiree dependent on housing support to the employee looking for a career change—a number easily far higher than the votes the ruling coalition managed to rake in. "Issue 18" "Essay" "" "Arvind Ramachandran" /issue-18//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Love Is for the Ones Who Love the Work: How Close Reading Interrupts Caste in the Classroom The time and energy it takes to apply myself and think about what I am reading swallows me into a world and leaves me suspended there, making me unavailable to people who aren’t comfortable with the idea of a Dalit person engaging in something that is not her humiliation. Reading is a way of being unavailable to a world that has taught you to remain outside. When we encounter stories about what being able to read and write did for people from the margins, we are essentially encountering the impact of close reading. "Issue 18" "Essay" "" "Vijeta Kumar" /issue-17//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Displacement, a Discomfort, a Translocation The diversity of the Filipino diasporic experience is often left unaddressed and conveniently reduced to give way to a cohesive idea of identity. How do we go back? And should we do that at all? "Issue 17" "Research paper" "" "Stephanie Misa" /issue-17//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Contact Reality: A Conversation with Maija Blåfield Maija Blåfield on misunderstanding and perception; her complex relationship with photography; embracing the unexpected while working with documentary subjects; and revealing the magic behind the ordinary in moments created by the texts and photographs. "Issue 17" "Interview" "" "Tuomas A. Laitinen" /issue-17//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Many Moves but No Broken Bones: A Review of ‘Flip! Skate & Art’ One could think of *FLIP!*, with high respect to popular culture, as more strictly a popular culture exhibition, meant for hanging out and digging – not to support the dichotomy of art vs. popular culture but to accentuate meaningful differences in interpretation, experience, and atmosphere. If so, why not make this more into popular culture? Go for the ‘cool’, or build an ‘awesome’ experience? Could this be Artsi’s path in the future? "Issue 17" "Review" "" "Max Ryynänen" /issue-17//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Blending Art, Friendship & Advocacy: A Conversation With Dr. Aiswarya Rao Dr. Aiswarya Rao on navigating hostile spaces for people-particularly women- with disabilities through the organization ‘Better World Shelter for Women with Disabilities’, building safe spaces, changing policies, and tying art into livelihood, fun, and friendship. "Issue 17" "Interview" "" "Greeshma Kuthar" /issue-17//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Approaches to Palestinian Liberation: Magical Realism as Resistance Literature Accused of being “shrewd, rogue, ill-mannered and undisciplined”, the black goat was constantly abducted and killed to prevent it from distorting the European landscape that Israel wished to create on the rubbles of the destroyed Palestinian one. In 1948, the year of the Nakba, Israel began importing a white Swiss goat to replace the black one. The white European goat was described as “polite, beautiful, healthy” and even “civilized”. "Issue 17" "Essay" "" "Sanabel Abdelrahman" /issue-17//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Journey to Kandahar ``` We hugged each other tightly and quickly let go. With no hope of seeing each other we cried, “Hope to see you soon.” ``` "Issue 17" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Elyas Alavi" /issue-16//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Creating Critical Tools Through Romani Vernacular Storytelling Collaborative methodologies can open research to plural knowers, knowledges, and ways of knowing which institutions stand to gain social and racial capital and good assessments of diversity and inclusion practices. But can such collaborations be truly reciprocal? What do the co-researchers gain, and who decides on the terms and potential gains of co-researching? "Issue 16" "Research paper" "" "Ioana Țîștea" /issue-16//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly South Asian Women’s Cinema: Between Festivals & Streaming European and US festivals have played a pivotal role in the global circulation of South Asian films. But their contribution has also been marked by questionable priorities: the near-exclusive promotion of Indian films or of films that speak to European and North American cinemas’ aesthetic affinities. With the new millennium, festivals began to embark on film production. How has this practice impacted South Asian filmmakers—women filmmakers in particular—and the visibility of their work? "Issue 16" "Essay" "" "Valentina Vitali" /issue-16//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Venus, in the Threshold of the Screen Focusing on movement exploration and feminist performative rewriting of the myth of the Western love goddess, this essay discusses the origin of the work Venus by Janina Rajakangas, performed during the Baltic Circle Festival 2022. It reflects on the collaborative creative process and puts in focus the erotization of young girls and the loud ideas about beauty and desirability that aggressively frame today’s gendered norms, the attention economy of social media, and the patriarchal views on seduction that shape it all. "Issue 16" "Essay" "" "María Villa" /issue-16//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Poor Rich People: A Review of ‘The Philosophy of Wealth’ The wealthy are equated with such minorities as if being wealthy were a specific cultural phenomenon or even an identity based on a form of discrimination. Veering through notions of whether wealth improves mental well-being or is taboo in Finnish society, Eetu Viren peruses the exhibition’s banality and ridiculousness to expound on questions of wealth and power and why the Finnish National Museum hosted an exhibition that characterizes the wealthy as a “minority group.” "Issue 16" "Review" "" "Eetu Viren" /issue-16//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Representation of Disobedient Bodies: A Critical Reading of Shirin Neshat’s Visual Language Knowing the genealogy of women’s resistance in Iran since the turn of the century helps us see recent events not as unprecedented ruptures and a sudden awakening of women in an archaic patriarchal society but as the accumulation of multiple resistances throughout our modern and contemporary history in the face of an ever-shape-shifting patriarchy. "Issue 16" "Review" "" "Sh S" /issue-16//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Between Being Political & Being Politicized: A Conversation With Ánnámáret In an engaging and insightful interview, conducted by Sophia Mitiku, Nuorgam based musician and yoiker Ánnámáret talks about the changing nature of yoiks, adjusting archival material to contemporary times. Having grown up between two cultures, she talks about how to understand spirituality and philosophy through their collisions and similarities in everyday life experiences. "Issue 16" "Interview" "" "Sophia Mitiku" /issue-16//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly 2018 ``` even though no one can quite name it everyone knows that something is monstrously missing from me ``` "Issue 16" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Yusra Amjad" /issue-16//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Writing Tamilness: Perspectives From Tamil Futures and Tamil Guardian Abinaya and Vanessa reflect on their experiences in the Tamil community and discuss the pressure to represent Tamilness for non-Tamil audiences. Abinaya discusses her work with Tamil Guardian, which sought to combat Sri Lankan government propaganda and elevate the voice of the Eelam Tamil polity. Vanessa discusses her role in editing Tamil Futures, a creative arts magazine aimed at the global Tamil community, which prioritized creative archiving and documenting underrepresented histories. "Issue 16" "Interview" "" "Abinaya Nathan, Vanessa Vigneswaramoorthy" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Taking Off a White Coat: Notes From Under Sanctions The Russian invasion of Ukraine should be stopped as soon as possible, but how? The world is showing great solidarity with the suffering side, but should it go hand in hand with humiliating, neglecting, and demonizing Russian passport holders? Can the problem be solved by putting more limitations and borders on ordinary citizens already oppressed by an authoritarian state? "Issue 15" "Essay" "" "Adel Kim" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Cracking the mind: You Are What the Attention Economy Wants After all the materiality of the world has been grasped, the next natural step of the Great Devourer - capitalism - is to go deeper into the immaterial within the confines of our minds. As we go about our days, we seep valuable information that can be monetized directly and made into codes of control, redirection, and upkeep. A new frontier has been unhinged by cracking our minds open, where the laws are all but settled. Is the immaterial world beyond our ethical discussions and legislative apparatuses too ethereal to be real, or can a reasonable amount of responsibility be demanded everywhere? "Issue 15" "Essay" "" "Sami Juhani Rekola" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Jumping Rope With Time In Samoa, an archipelago situated closeby to the said line, this border was however not abstract. It wasn’t something that could be as easily ignored throughout the remaining year. The line was too close to overlook. By way of geographic proximity, the island chain was more likely touched and disturbed by it. In 2011 the government of the territory thus took matters into their own hands. It decided to change its own future by changing its own place in time. To achieve this modification, Samoa decided to get rid of December 31 2011 in order to be able to slip through the thread of time. While the world had remained in its configurations of time, the island had, with a blink of an eye, altered its own configuration of time. By disappearing December 31 2011, by erasing twenty-four hours, Samoa catapulted itself twenty-four hours ahead into the future. "Issue 15" "Essay" "" "Sinthujan Varatharajah" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On Love? A Review of the Exhibition ‘Unity’ at SIC Space The works, in relation to each other, successfully embody the curatorial statement, ‘we are an inseparable part of nature and therefore always connected to each other.’ They weave together the concepts of life, love and death, therefore, establishing a coherent larger framework of the exhibition. This thematic consistency is also visible in the aesthetic production with a striking palette of cool earth tones. While the composition of the works within the confines of the gallery makes perfect sense, the overall exhibition raises more questions than it answers in regards to its larger socio-political implications. Collectively their works hardly do justice to the subject matter that they deal with. "Issue 15" "Review" "" "Najia Fatima" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly May you live in interesting times: A Review of The Woodcutter Story My point of view in this review revolves around the interpretation of the two-fold structure of *The Woodcutter Story*. Underneath the film's exterior of entertaining black comedy exists a poetic-existential interior. My actual question in this review concerns the relationship between these two layers. If the "deep" concern of the film is the existential question of whether senseless suffering could generate a sense of meaning, it cannot be answered directly without a recourse to religious register. In that case, no authoritative answer can be given except by appeal to the "superficial" level of the actual events and their logic. "Issue 15" "Review" "" "Taneli Viitahuhta" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On Recognising the Moment of Hope: Speaking in Echoes With Hiwa K. Hiwa is interested in research, participatory working, and collective action, but he is also interested in making it, for lack of a better word, fun. Previously written texts and press articles on Hiwa have called him an “extellectual”, someone who gains knowledge from ‘the streets’, through conversations and the exchange of books. Despite the risk of repeating pre-published information, I find it critically important for the sake of reading the following interview to point out that the qualities of humour and satire—to neither take oneself too seriously nor wallow in the miseries of the world—occupy a central position in Hiwa’s work. "Issue 15" "Interview" "" "Ali Akbar Mehta" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Mommy, Say Something to the Camera: A Conversation with Paola Fernanda Guzmán Figueroa The fifteen-minute-long film did not give me a chance to blink; I could not stop thinking about its dreamlike atmosphere that traveled back and forth between the present and past moments through the familial archives and present-time footage. Paola's attempt to reconstruct her past in relation to her current search for answers as to why she is thousands of kilometers away from her family captivated me. What you're reading is an exchange between Paola and me in which we try to understand her working processes and inspirations for creating this work in greater depth. "Issue 15" "Interview" "" "Sepideh Rahaa" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Weaving Connections in the Flow: A Conversation With Leila Seyedzadeh I began using fabric within my fine art practice in 2015. However, I have been immersed in textiles my whole life, and my mother is undoubtedly the main inspirational force behind this incredible experience. Our house was always full of fabrics: curtains, mattresses, sheets, and many of my mother’s *Chador Namazes* (prayer veils). As children, my brother and I often made a big tent in our bedroom out of my mother’s chador that almost occupied the entire room. I was excited to experience a different space between the wrinkles of the fabric, as if entering another world. What surreal joy to lie down on the carpets and stare at the floral chador ceiling. "Issue 15" "Interview" "" "Helia Hamedani" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Who Gets Love in Popular Culture? A Review of Pa Ranjith’s Film Natchathiram Nagargiradhu Who gets love in popular culture? I have been thinking about this question for a decade now. Soon after its release last August, I went to watch a film that surprised me in ways I had never imagined. Pa Ranjith’s latest film, Natchathiram Nagargiradhu, which translates to ‘a star shoots across,’ seems to have answered all our questions about the idea of contemporary love. Trust me, there is an interpretation for everyone - inter-caste, inter-faith, queer love, inclusivity, sexuality, woman as a category, genderless casteless love. "Issue 15" "Review" "" "Jyoti Nisha" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly To a Suburbia Called Ramallah ``` Shatterd by by bullets; shiny glass facades Shitty coffee poured in environment-friendly cups. Sports cars on crumbling asphalt And, high-end brands walking in a seiged air ``` "Issue 15" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Adele Jarrar" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Where the Striped Hyenas Are, or, A Tale Is a Map and a Compass: Some Fragments on the Fantastical, Land and Remembrance Where the striped hyenas are is not only a place in the imagination or in the past. Where the striped hyenas are is also a possibility for what the future could bring. It’s where they lie, waiting for their turn to return from their exile. Where the hyenas are is also where the ghouls and the djinn are, behind seven mountains, dreaming and chasing their world into being again. "Issue 15" "Essay" "" "Shayma Nader" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Wild Grass ``` Your refusal might enrage the master. He might abuse you, and call you a parasite for refusing to do any work after eagerly swallowing the food last night. Become even more determined. Sit tight. ``` "Issue 15" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Rajyashri Goody" /issue-15//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / Autumn 2022 One of the worst betrayals of oppressive systems is destroying our sense of imagination and confining it to their limited worldview, where the word ‘woman’ is only synonymous with motherhood and with bodies that need to be controlled; where Jin Jiyan Azadi isn’t a valid manifesto because it sounds too romantic for the very patriarchal minds it wishes to change; where your idea of equality means that there should be the word ‘man’ next to ‘woman’; or it may seem the revolution is excluding men. So yes, we have the most progressive manifesto, but how to live up to it? "Issue 15" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-14//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Dreaming Utopias Into Existence: A Conversation With Sonia Boyce Sonia Boyce is a pioneer of the British Black Art movement. Her practice stems from the visual arts but has grown in so many directions that categorizing her work into any single art form feels oversimplifying. Then again, that is partly the nature of Black Art: the need and ability to be multiple things and escape definition simultaneously. Sonia and I are from different generations; we work with distinct art forms in different contexts and very different parts of Europe. Despite these differences, we almost immediately find a common language. In our discussion, we define it as the language of blackness. Working as a black man in northern Finland, it is a rare opportunity to have a tête-a-tête with my elders. It can even be hard to recognize my elders. Sonia called it *systemic amnesia*, how our environments erase our lineages and make us think we are alone. "Issue 14" "Interview" "" "Julian Owusu" /issue-14//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly From Memory to Memorial: A Conversation With Aishe Vejdani Sympathetic resonance in music is the reactionary sonar vibration in an object caused by the vibrations of a different object: It is like the awakening of a note in something that is not actively made to sound. When I see the newest paintings by Aishe Vejdani, this is what I feel. The visual resonance sounds a similar chord in my retina, and I feel emotional waves ripple through me.I am intrigued by how the paintings look, both ancient and new. These works reference Aishe's ancestral past, including the hardship of her forefathers. "Issue 14" "Interview" "" "Anna Ruth" /issue-14//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly When Home Follows You Home: A Review of Anssi Kasitonni’s Speed Records When I reflected on the works from *Speed Records*, I questioned if there was supposed to be an element of parody. Was the use of the candy-colored paint intentional to comment on the glorification of US mass consumerism, specifically within the subculture of motorsports? Many works were created out of resin; was this to comment on the permanence of US-American mass culture? Or even the permanence of US-American cultural hegemony within the vast amounts of consumed nostalgia? Like consumable products, cultural media omnisciently persists through microplastics, carbon emissions, or successful propaganda. "Issue 14" "Review" "" "Gabriella Presnal" /issue-14//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Unbearable Existence of Kittens: A Review of Reija Meriläinen’s Snugglesafe The exhibition opens with a series of sculptural elements installed in the first of Titanik’s two exhibition rooms. The dominant colour is a peachy orange, and the materials range from glazed ceramics to smooth silicone and fluffy fake fur. Some objects are similar to everyday things related to keeping cats, a climbing tree, climbable shelves on the wall, and cat beds. This everyday impression gets nudged toward the uncanny by some extra elements. From a shelf of the climbing tree, some sort of goo is dripping onto the floor, like a cat had lost the surface tension holding it together and became shapeless matter. "Issue 14" "Review" "" "Camille Auer" /issue-14//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Noise, Sound and the Ongoing Project of Black Cultural Production: An Essay Reflecting on Sonia Boyce’s Recent Visit to Finland In my view, Sonia Boyce’s presence in Helsinki is complicated by Finnish institutions’ treatment of black people in Finland. This essay thus considers the conditions of possibility that Boyce’s presence catapults for black cultural productions in Finland. To be clear, I am not implying that for black cultural production to make sense in Finland, outside-Finnish-borders blackness needs always to be present; instead, I want to trouble this very tendency that many Finnish institutions seem to rely on. "Issue 14" "Essay" "" "Milka Njoroge" /issue-14//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education: Wicked Problems, Dreams, and Nightmares With this text, I’m probing into ongoing processes at Aalto University in the last five years, which, among other things, led to the administrative decision to remove the University-Wide Art Studies (UWAS) program in 2021. The story starts in 2016 when something quite special was cooking in the Art, Design, and Architecture School, and a truly radical form of transdisciplinary education was lived and enjoyed by many, thanks to UWAS. I want to make sense of the sad fallout from such dream; a fallout that happened despite countless protests at different levels of the organization’s pyramid. "Issue 14" "Essay" "" "María Villa" /issue-14//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly 5 Years of Pakistan’s Aurat March: The Young Feminist Movement Shocked the Nation Into Paying Attention. But Where Is It Headed? In 2018 three Aurat March chapters across different cities - ostensibly non-hierarchical, avowedly self-funded - announced their Aurat Marches in their respective cities. There was an effusion of radical feminist digital art and hashtags, fiery debate and declarations, and mobilization on the streets, including street art murals, posters and solidarity building with working-class women’s organisations and marginalized communities. That first year, the marchers were modest in number, but the idea of women marching, singing, dancing, and shouting on the streets that were otherwise hostile to them every other day of the year had an extraordinary impact. Pakistanis sat up and paid attention - but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. The march has happened every year since and has spread to smaller cities, including Peshawar, Quetta, Multan, Faisalabad, Hyderabad and Sukkur. And the backlash against it from mainstream media, government institutions, and religious militant organizations has continued to escalate and exponentially exceed its own scale. "Issue 14" "Essay" "" "Hira Azmat" /issue-14//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Bad Idea ``` After going missing for three months, Lisa, Suddenly appears at my midnight window. “I have an idea. A very bad idea” She whispers through the bars. I, both waking and dreaming Forgot to ask the important questions. “What? Tell me”. ``` "Issue 14" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Aleena" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Stories of Resistance: A Conversation With Filmmakers Omey Anand and Jyoti Nisha Today most Dalits are first or second-generation learners who are still trying to assert their existence and improve their societal position. In doing so, they prioritise safety and financial security and often enter fields tried and tested by their parents or other Dalit community members – they do not have the privilege of “choosing” versatile careers like art or filmmaking. Moreover, there is limited access and almost no exposure to the process of entering these industries. Even though Art is a storytelling medium that can bring about change, it is arduous and challenging for Dalit Bahujan filmmakers to publish their stories in a gate-kept caste society. Telling a story itself is the Art that propels change. Still, the question remains, ***how to break through the caste-based gatekeeping and works towards building a Dalit and Bahujan discourse of filmmaking and documenting?*** "Issue 13" "Interview" "" "Pranita Thorat" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / September 2022 It’s not that they didn’t “get it” back then and made a mistake. The problem is that they still don’t “get it”, that understanding without which all social movements are doomed to fail. I’m referring to our flawed idea of “freedom” as something that is limited to our own views only. Whereas we truly believe in freedom when we want it for our adversaries as well. "Issue 13" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Confessions of a Documentary Junkie: 2022 Love & Anarchy Festival Picks The first thing to say about the value of documentaries, and about the Love & Anarchy festival selection that follows is that they tend to be about people, and they tend to articulate the possibilities of a changing world. Against all odds, even the faintest possibility of ‘a world’, or rather ‘worlds’ that are transforming, can inspire hope. "Issue 13" "Review" "" "Minou Norouzi" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Nuori Taide: A Forum for Young Art Makers Nuori Taide and other cultural youth work organisations need funding from the state to guarantee that art and culture services are accessible for all young people, regardless of their living situation. What worries me is how the changes in the government may change youth policy and its funding. We hope that future criteria for youth work funding will better take into account digital youth work as well as the nature of artistic hobbies. "Issue 13" "Essay" "" "Anni Rupponen, Ansa Kurola, Karoliina Kuusisto, Tiia Tammi, Moona Rantanen, Jenny Idman" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Finding Anarchy: A Review of Helsinki International Film Festival I could see a lot of love. But I was still trying to find the anarchy that breaks through and what it breaks through. I wondered if I should write about the positionality of the festival in what can be termed as its cultural intervention into events and processes that affect us today. "Issue 13" "Review" "" "Kazu Ahmed" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly POOJA, What Is This Behaviour?: Memes as Political Participation & Toolkit of Digital Resistance in India Formal modes of engineering the well-being of the population are oppressive and exclusionary. Activists, scholars and citizens of the world have to find compassionate and strategic ways to enact their power of adaptability. Memes allow us to challenge conventional and restrictive forms of education, policy and collective action, fostering effective solutions for a broken system. Memes, as the new toolkit adopted by Internet users of India, has the potential to nurture democracy and pluralism, with the hope to preserve freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom to resist. "Issue 13" "Essay" "" "Abhinit Khanna" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On (the lack of) Diversity in Academia: A Conversation With Vivetha Thambinathan The following interview is an intimate and vulnerable dialogue between distant friends: Naomi Joshi and Vivetha Thambinathan, back in 2020. When we finally spoke, to my surprise, an organic friendship was born as words were exchanged, from similarities and differences in our experiences to statements of solidarity, acknowledgements of pain, and an unwavering fight for healing and care. Vivetha opened her heart to me, and I feel grateful to share her unbelievably eloquent voice. "Issue 13" "Interview" "" "Naomi Shefali Joshi" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Some Ways in Which a Gender May Be Felt I wish the nurses, doctors, therapists, and psychologists in Transpoli would see all the art Finland’s trans community produces. Would it make them drop their blinders and see us beyond their questionnaire? As deep-sea creatures? As the deep time-travelling bodies? As the air seeping through the saxophone player’s lips? As the space, that is quite a lot of things and can become even more. "Issue 13" "Essay" "" "August Joensalo" /issue-13//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Verdict ``` it takes only one time of writing something to call yourself a writer but how long until the title is revoked? just how much non-writing must one indulge in in order to be punishingly excluded? is it a week, a month, a year? or is it until all writing utensils are out of harm’s way, no longer kept at an arm’s reach, or worse, simply no longer reached for? ``` "Issue 13" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Vanessa Kowalski" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Who Watches Whom? Ruminations on Power, Gaze, and Field Through Pilvi Takala’s Close Watch Close Watch exhibited at the National Finnish Pavilion at Venice Biennale, 2022, is a multimedia installation that, at its core, utilises the artist themself as an embodied intervention within a focused area of artistic research and apparent critique. In the context of this work presented as an exhibition at the national pavilion and its implications of somehow representing Finnish Art, this text seeks to question whether issues pertaining to embodiment and social intervention – and by extension, research conducted and artistic practice developed through it – can ever be free of the power relations implicit in the political, identity-driven understanding of society today. "Issue 12" "Review" "" "Ali Akbar Mehta" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Value(s) of Verkkosaari: Urban Safety and Subculture in Gentrifying Helsinki Club Dia is a ‘daytime haven born out of a need for a safe and well-thought-out regular open-air venue and hangout in Helsinki’. Surrounded by a wall of shipping containers and nestled against the Swerock cement factory in Verkkosaari, it comprises a dancefloor, bar, food truck and community radio studio. Decorated with disco balls that sit atop towers of wooden cable reels, its aesthetic speaks of its industrial setting, but the colour scheme and clientele are reminiscent of hip, gentrifying areas such as Kallio. "Issue 12" "Essay" "" "Rohan Stevenson" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / June 2022 Even the smaller organisations that clearly have difficulty raising money, lack innovation, and can’t figure out how to grow their audiences, don’t budge to give space (and by that I mean to give at least a 5-year working contract, not just invite them on a panel talk) to non-liberal BIPOCs who have a vision, know how to plan, raise money, or attract audiences. The fear is real, and it’s not going anywhere. "Issue 12" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Accessibility Is Not Static: A Conversation With Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen A significant decision in my career was to abandon gallery-based work and pursue my own interests. I began creating pieces independently without telling anyone when I was supposed to complete them or where they would end up. I found creative ways of showing the works; I performed in public spaces or at different events, often filmed those and uploaded them online. I also started to tell other people’s stories, so the video was an excellent format for that, and it started almost accidentally. This was a tremendous professional change for me, and I have continued working that way more or less until now. "Issue 12" "Interview" "" "Iisa Lepistö" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Worry and Play: A Conversation With Kristiina ‘Tikke’ Tuura One has to be respectful towards someone willing to tell their story and not impose one’s own opinions and views when someone’s ready to open up their wounds. Respect for the human, the situation and the story is everything. This is common sense. "Issue 12" "Interview" "" "Juha Hilpas" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly One Last Exhibition: A Conversation With Sanni Seppä The images are familiar, quotidian and easily accessible. They do not say that there is violence in the background. Only the exhibition text reveals it. I think those pieces without text would be the most useless and boring. Wouldn’t it be the most boring thing to copy your childhood images while painting? A lovely picture is not enough for me. "Issue 12" "Interview" "" "Viivi Koljonen" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Problematizing Perspectives and Positions: A Review of ARS22 Is it possible for a white institution to say it presents the articulation of people of colour? Is it possible for a non-indigenous institution – which through its national identity participates in the theft of indigenous artifacts and bodies – to say it is giving a place to the ideas and thoughts of the indigenous people? How can an institution talk about the disappearance of universal value judgements and the need for diversity in values within society when it is the final harbinger of value judgements and its permanent staff, which wields this power, is itself not diverse? How does it claim to judge what “diversity” or the subaltern articulate and what of this articulation should be in a museum? What are these claims based upon? The choice of artists? The act itself of legitimizing a voice? Unless the very foundations of this system change, we are all just playing along. "Issue 12" "Review" "" "Timo S. Tuhkanen" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Playing the Bitter-Sweet Symphony of Technology: A Review of ON || OFF || ON: The Shop as Gadget-Heaven As artists working with technology, we can explore the most poetic horizons of this endeavour, but we should not shy away from scrutinising it from within. Despite not delving full-on into their inquiry, I feel the ALOES are on a swing, floating between those postures. And I like their dancing. "Issue 12" "Review" "" "Roberto Fusco" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Freedom Riders Persian Podcast: A Journey Through the South and the Civil Rights Landmarks The Freedom Riders Persian podcast follows the story and route of the Freedom Riders. They were African American and white Civil Rights activists who took bus trips through the American South in 1961. The 12-episode podcast is like an audio tour of some of the most iconic Civil Rights landmarks. Through this tour and the making of this podcast, we wanted to learn more and raise awareness among the Persian Speaking Communities about the history of racism and the Civil Rights movement in the US. "Issue 12" "Essay" "" "Setare S. Arashloo" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Some Notes on the Legalities of Collective Work Ahhh, collective work! It’s definitely not for everyone, but I firmly believe that combining our forces is the only way to make change happen. There are many particularities in this type of work, and as a legal worker, I often get questions from working groups who have received a collective grant for a project. The NO NIIN crew and I figured it could be helpful to talk a little about two of the most commonly asked questions: the legal status of a working group and making payments to people not part of the core group. Read on! "Issue 12" "Essay" "" "Riikka Kuoppala" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Long Before Justice, Tourists Arrive With the end of the war-genocide, a new type of tourism started emerging in Jaffna: war tourism. In this essay, சிந்துஜன் வரதராஜா looks at life inside of a new hotel in the former war zone and explores by way of it the intrinsic relationship of military-occupation with tourism in Eelam. "Issue 12" "Essay" "" "Sinthujan Varatharajah" /issue-12//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Midsummer Spells The abandoned skin of a smoked salmon lies on a dish as everyone’s stomachs are full. The fish has been washed down with sparkling wine, with bubbles that make people tired of wishing everyone a good and blessed midsummer, that makes marveling the good weather too effortful. Each time they celebrate the nightless night by raising their glasses, the edges around their words become softer, blurrier. "Issue 12" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Johanna Valjakka" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly K-oh-llective: Maybe We’re in a Bad Marriage Working together under the name *K-oh-llective*, we are a group of five artists currently based in Cairo, London, Rabat and Sierre. Ever since we met in 2018, we continued to foster a support system to nurture each other’s practices as we frequently engaged in ongoing and critical conversations. The brainchild of our coming together is an online platform with the same name, where we create a space for resource-sharing, writing about and discussing urgent topics amongst art practitioners in Egypt and the Arab world. "Issue 11" "Essay" "" "Nada Elkalaawy, Engy Mohsen, Mohamed Al Bakeri, Soukaina Joual and Rania Atef" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / May 2022 I firmly believe these days that no amount of diversity/anti-racism training or consulting can resolve what is clearly a lack of feeling towards those who don’t share your race or socioeconomic status. I’ve had it with all the politeness and patience with which we deal with those who don’t even see us as humans. "Issue 11" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Loving Women: Loving Labels Do such exhibitions choose not to include other genders, as it would be too complex and difficult to explain these lived experiences and identities to their crowds? And, what about power structures and safety within the curatorial practices when working with underrepresented* artists? Who was prioritised? Who gets to speak, and on whose behalf? Whose needs were taken into consideration, and whose desires? Who felt safe, and who didn’t? Who felt understood and seen, and who didn’t? What happens to the artist’s autonomy over their own identity and artistic practice when taken under curatorial work within established institutions? "Issue 11" "Review" "" "Gladys Camilo" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Book as an Art Practice: A Conversation With Hikari Nishida But then I stop and think: Am I just going towards this boring kind of “business”? Is it a trap? There’s so much liberty at the moment. That’s something I appreciate. But how do I continue? I haven’t solved that yet, but I’d love to. In a way, it’s fine if it’s not me who runs it, it could even change its name from TTB to something else. Whatever! I just want there to be a space for specific books. And space to make new events and continue experimenting with books – around what they are and what they can be. "Issue 11" "Interview" "" "Elliot Lundegård" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Crouched! Crouched Is My Position: A Review of the Adventures of Harriharri The Adventures of Harriharri is one such 'other-worldly' space where we can experience each other’s dreams. The live game performance uncovers the overlapping of territories, the unsettling of institutions, and the linking of languages and sites of exploitation. It investigates what migration can teach us about contemporary forms of community and encourages us to search for that which goes beyond them. "Issue 11" "Review" "" "Uzair Amjad" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Keepsake ``` You own my wet pink sock As everything else I carried Dry memories disrupted by molecules of time A silver stoned flower nose piercing Peacefully scrimmaging with your wild red curls Supposedly acupuncture for the nerves Pain relief pins in India for childbirth. Ensured in the volcanic pile of all your belongings High up ``` "Issue 11" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Fjolla Hoxha" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Paintings About Decaying and Growth: A Conversation With Sirkku Rosi All small things matter because they evaluate our thinking, and trivial things can be seen as passages to bigger ones. Art can easily be seen as an ineffective way of changing the world, but I think there is this common memory, or heritage, in art, which acts like roots. Art comes from lived life, from the things we have seen, felt, heard, or explored. "Issue 11" "Interview" "" "Sakari Tervo" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Playful Personification of Death: A Conversation With Melina Paakkonen I don’t expect the viewer to take in everything in the painting at one glance. There are many possible storylines, and you can also read the painting in different directions. It’s not necessary to proceed in a linear fashion—you can go back at any time. "Issue 11" "Interview" "" "Riikka Stewen" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly STOP Cutting Funds for Higher Education in the Arts! One is reminded of the famous ghost of the Communist Manifesto: students in the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture have taken to occupy the ARTS building Väre, organising demonstrations and negotiations with the university representatives. Not bad! "Issue 11" "Essay" "" "Taina Rajanti" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Co-Artistic Director Speaking How long can an art association operate under short-term funding? How many fellow organizations suffer from the same problem as Catalysti? Have they found solutions? How does Catalysti stay true to its mission of granting more opportunities as an association under such restrictions? "Issue 11" "Essay" "" "Lin Chih Tung" /issue-11//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Five timeframes, countless companionships I find the topic of artist residencies and friendships very personal and relevant for me as an artist. At any residence, time always seems to run out and eventually, people leave for different roads. The image hints at moments where activities have been interrupted: food is on the table, sketches and supplies are wide open, and the outdoor space flows into the interior. "Issue 11" "Art" "" "Julianna Hyrri" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Winning the ‘Toss’: A Look at Who Gets a Sports Biopic in India One of the reasons why the sports genre is fascinating is that behind the facade of entertainment, it has many layers of subtext and symbolism attached to it. A well-made sports film hides more than what it reveals. This is why looking deeply at this genre can uncover many nuances and tell us a lot about nationhood, communities, politics, and society. "Issue 10" "Essay" "" "Anurag Minus Verma" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Aurat March: Reimagining Justice Through Sisterhood & Solidarity The 2022 Aurat March *‘Reimagining Justice’* theme encourages the Pakistani society and the State to reimagine legal, economic, and environmental justice to align with a feminist future. It asks that a new and more inclusive perspective of justice be envisioned, expanding its definitions beyond the limited ones granted under the patriarchal system and its legislation. "Issue 10" "Essay" "" "Sheherazade Amin" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / April 2022 Directness is a desirable quality and very hard to possess, and not just for an artist, no need to nod yet, I have just started talking about directness and why it’s natural to feel like an imposter. "Issue 10" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On Working With Friction and Confrontation: Conversation With Lisa Kalkowski Like a well-functioning infrastructure, producing is an invisible labour of care, resourcefulness, and passion for the project at hand. There’s a lot of work behind the scenes, and often the producer is the last to be acknowledged. Few people in the cultural sector are as industrious yet deeply affectionate as Lisa Kalkowski. Lisa is one of the few people whose interest in the projects she’s producing is as important as the project’s ethics. She has a penchant for learning languages, is a dance enthusiast, a problem solver, and a stress-diffuser. "Issue 10" "Interview" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Real Housewives Franchise: Series of Problematic -Isms and Car-Crash TV at Its Finest The Real Housewives franchise has a special place in my heart: it’s a beautiful, messy, infuriating mixture of entertainment and escapism. It’s almost like a twisted sociological experiment where rich people’s vacuous thoughts, money obsessions, and malignant narcissism are exposed. "Issue 10" "Review" "" "Ndéla Faye" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly “Most of the Time, It’s Just a Wonderful Thing”: Conversation With August Joensalo I try to balance my practice between what I think is important to discuss politically and what feels enjoyable for me in life. The topics I end up making films about are those that combine these two things. I think I’m good at describing something by bringing together images, sounds, and words. "Issue 10" "Interview" "" "Orlan Ohtonen" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Personal Decamerone I’ve never felt comfortable exploring my sexuality, and I think I need to engage in this aspect of my creative life. I’m worn, strained and feel a need to revitalise myself. What I’m doing here is an attempt to come to terms with my curiosity. But I might be overdoing it. Instead of working with my issues, I’m jumping in headfirst and committing a public sex act to get over it. We all have to start somewhere, right? "Issue 10" "Essay" "" "Eero Yli-Vakkuri" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Tell Your Story, Though Your Voice May Shake: A Review of Third Culture Kids Suomi Finland *Third Culture Kids Suomi Finland* teases out the multidimensional layers of culture and identity. What does it mean to be born in Finland and know Finland as your place of residence and socialization, to be a native Finnish speaker and be spoken to in English, to have a white Finnish parent, and get asked where one is really from? What does this do to one’s sense of belonging? "Issue 10" "Review" "" "Wambui Njuguna-Räisänen" /issue-10//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Friends and Their Homes ``` I wake up on somedays In houses with patched walls And a bucket with water in the middle of nowhere On beds with no sheets And stamped up cockroaches at the edge of the bed My hand’s in a pile of ash And my glasses are lost in someone else’s hair I smell smoke and hear snores The only clean thing in the room is a gleaming red guitar ``` "Issue 10" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Priyanka Paul" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly No Shade: Betty Fvck & the House of Betty Fvck **House of Fvck** is a Drag collective born in 2020 during the Helsinki Pride Week. It was a project for Nuorten Pride to teach young people under 18 to do Drag with makeup, costume and performance; the tutors were **Chris Oh!** and **Betty Fvck**. "Issue 9" "Interview" "" "Betty Fvck" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / March 2022 The Western sense of superiority over all other beings in the universe isn't something that needs further "unfolding" or "unearthing". I don't want to get into the deep-seated anger I felt when I saw all the Finnish art and culture institutions that we have been urging for months to extend solidarity to the Palestinian struggle for decolonisation publicly and to participate in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, have not wasted one moment in issuing solidarity statements for Ukraine and halting collaborations with Russia. Mohammed El-Kurd was on point when he wrote, "Hypocrisy" doesn't describe this adequately. The appropriate word is psychosis." "Issue 9" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Countering Cohesive Narratives: Conversation with Azar Saiyar I am interested in language. I question language. I often feel that naming things too clearly, opening them up as if they were on an operating table, does not speak about the things I am trying to reach, but puts them in certain categories, forced within a certain structure that is not my language. It feels like a violent act. "Issue 9" "Interview" "" "Marja Viitahuhta" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Sanctuary The girl looked up, and her gaze met Marina’s. To her mild surprise, the girl walked toward her. Marina flushed and looked away. It had been a long while since anyone had last talked to her. Her heart pounded in her ears and her palms felt sweaty. "Issue 9" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Toshiya Kamei" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Pehmee’s Watchlist: Breaking Stereotypes, One Music Video at a Time Music videos typically are used to entertain the public, but the effects of music videos can be much more far-reaching than just entertainment. They originally served the purpose of creating an outlet where artists could generate publicity for their work, broaden their popular appeal, and reach wider audiences with interesting audio-visual content. Over the years, the visual imagery in music videos has increasingly become as significant as the music itself. "Issue 9" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Pehmee aka The Soft Collective" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly “A Very Marketable Commodity” I am an immigrant in Finland. I have had to move houses three times in the past year, and this small book, published by quince editiones [1], seems to get me: it has an itinerary similar to that of a freelance cultural worker, designed in Mexico, edited in Finland, and printed in Estonia. "Issue 9" "Review" "" "Olga Spyropoulou" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Plantasy: On the ABCs of TLC *Plantasy*, or “a garden for dreaming” centers around the ideas of togetherness, community building, and the realization of utopias. These kinds of concerns are currently very popular with art spaces as they all vie to create, or at least make the illusion of hospitality, safer spaces, and non-exploitative working conditions. The actualization of these goals seems very simple yet challenging at once because collective work is complicated when an attempt is made to make space for everyone’s needs and desires. "Issue 9" "Review" "" "Hanan Mahbouba" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Occupying the Palestinian Dream The settler-colonial Zionist project may have, for now, occupied Palestine physically, but its failure to occupy the dream of Palestine in the Palestinians inside and outside of historic Palestine not only signifies a failure of the project as a whole but foreshadows a mammoth failure in the future of the necropolitical state. "Issue 9" "Essay" "" "Sanabel Abdelrahman" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Brink of the Platform: Riding With Deliveroo customer aggressively informs me that he accidentally put in his parent’s address and that i need to take the order to his. he messaged me through the app apparently but, with no signal in the building, i can’t see it. using the younger brother’s phone, i type the address into google maps - it's two and a half miles away. "Issue 9" "Essay" "" "Rohan Stevenson" /issue-9//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Assembly Plant, 2022 A specimen-style diagram on flower assemblage in preparation for 'rooting' delves into the topics of how to re-assemble oneself to set roots somewhere. Do we change ourselves and re-assemble our features to be allowed to remain in the garden, or do we tend a small corner in a garden of our own? Often ‘belonging’ is a concept that exists within change. We can belong to many contradictory concepts, not necessarily following a specific blueprint. "Issue 9" "Art" "" "Teo Georgiev" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Taidekirppis: What Happens When an Archive-Based Project Ends Prematurely? How is it expected of artworkers without access to employment security and no business background to be able to sustain their organizations and initiatives once their grant runs out? Could funding bodies come together to create the possibility of dialogue, the sharing of experiences, and the development of a body of knowledge and toolsets around the topic of post-funding survival and economic sustainability for the initiatives they fund? Or at least create a space for questioning and analysing these futures? "Issue 8" "Essay" "" "Andrea Coyotzi Borja, Farbod Fakharzadeh" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Noise: A Review of Vaiti by Laura Malmivaara Perhaps the most troubling aspect of cancel culture is that it almost always focuses on individuals. This might not be the initial purpose – when actresses came out with stories of abuse by Louhimies, they were discussing the Finnish film industry and how it glosses over abusive behavior as much as he does. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Aurora Lemma" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / December 2021 A couple of weeks ago, we were chatting about being upfront, and I said that *I too want to be like that* - ‘upfront and take it on the chin’. E responded, “Yes, you should do that, I’ll support you.” Imagine two women killjoying their way into work and life, *aha*, the joy! "Issue 8" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A fragment of a landscape, an iceberg, or something else entirely: Conversation with Rita Vargas Even though we met for the first time, Rita was keen on opening up to talk about a variety of subjects. We talked about many things, stopping longer on the role of Renaissance in Rita’s current art practice, her PhD on artists-in-residence, the latest exhibition in Myymälä 2 and the invisibility of foreign artists in Finland. "Issue 8" "Interview" "" "Jakub Bobrowski" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On the Limits and Possibilities of Decolonising Universities For the past year, I have been teaching the course “Decolonise your Studies” at Aalto University with Kiia Beilinson. Settling on this title was an effort to inspire action, despite believing it’s not really possible to decolonise academia. Teaching the course filled me with feelings of inadequacy and doubt. How can we make sure this course does its name justice, especially in a colonial country like Finland that is still oppressing Sámi peoples’ rights? Are we only playing into an empty buzzword culture that is actually damaging to indigenous rights? How can we justify teaching this course at a university, with its structures of institutional violence? "Issue 8" "Essay" "" "Miia Laine" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Ejaculation Falls: A Queer Diasporic Review All I’m saying is, I want equity, I also want space; I want to use technology for my neuro-hacking and biohacking to affirm my gender-pro-choice. I’ll have what he’s having please. Until I reclaim my basic human rights, I resist the binary, refuse the insufficient status quo. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Vishnu Vardhani Rajan" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly FIONDE: Unbinding the lost play within us Fionde’s story is based on four central elements, which are firmament (represented by the balloons), desert (place), wind (sound) and stars (lights). I have built my review using these elements as titles for each section. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Saara Kahra" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly MATA: Not a Forest, but a Killer Field MATA is a story situated in the Amazon, one that is true, topical and impactful. As MATA is a story, the review will also start as a story. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Riina Rastas" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Darkness Into Flashing Rhymes: Ailu Valle and DJ Uyarakq’s Opening Night Club at the Baltic Circle Festival It is high time more events happened in Helsinki, led by Indigenous peoples. In this way, the venue naturally becomes a place of belonging, a place where attendees free themselves by just following their own rhythm while speaking up for care towards nature and acknowledging the need to have a night diverse in identities, languages, and musical traditions. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Hector Sanchez" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Transformations: The Secret Worlds Inside Baltic Circle Festival's "Undertone" The following creative review is inspired by the theatre event entitled “Undertone: a Proposal for Legal Loitering”, an all-night-long amalgam of performances from 08 pm - 05 am that took place in Tiivistämö on November 27th of 2021. The show was put together by a group of creative associates that were convened by Geoffrey Erista. The show expresses the subcultures of electronic music and the ballroom scene, all the while paying tribute to the active creation of safe spaces. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Anthony Herman" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Deep Time Trans, a Lookinglass Into Prehistoric Queer Ecology: Conversation With Even Minn and Teo Ala-Ruona On the eve of the day view of Deep Time Trans (DTT), the latest project by the DTT working group, I sat with two members of this collective of artists to discuss queer ecology, queer futures, and transformation. "Issue 8" "Interview" "" "Francisco Rangel" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly African Cinema Takes Center Stage As one of the central themes of HIFF this year, a diverse selection of African films took Finnish audiences across the culturally rich continent and into the vast imaginations of African filmmakers. The eclectic selections were further complimented by the five extraordinary short films chosen for the *African Express – Short Station*. Each of these short films was able to deliver a wealth of human experiences in under 30 minutes of cinematic splendor. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Sharron L. Todd" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Apples: The fragility of identity constructs Apples takes place during a fictional pandemic that erases people’s memories on a random basis. Such is the case of the main character, Aris, who is struck by oblivion while riding the bus. Once a person has forgotten, they are taken to the hospital and usually claimed by their loved ones. When nobody comes looking for Aris, he is enrolled in a reintegration programme where he is given the task of performing various activities and documenting them in photographs. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Nadezhda Atanasova" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Two of Us: On Ageing Queer Love & Aged Queer Stereotypes Our Western popular culture is youth-obsessed and having elderly people as main characters is a rare sight. And when it comes to queer representation in cinema, there aren't enough lesbian movies. A movie about lesbian elderly women? Well, definitely there isn’t enough of those either, and that makes *Two of Us*, a French film written and directed by Italian director-writer Filippo Meneghetti, a welcomed yet flawed addition to queer representation. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Isa Komsi" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Lan Yu: Attraction of Opposites; Between Symbolism in Beijing Comrades Lan Yu is a story about a melodramatic love affair between an architecture student, Lan Yu, and a wealthy businessman, Han Dong. They keep on finding each other throughout the years till time runs out. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Yilin Ma" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Bliss: With a Light Touch, With a Tender Gaze 'Bliss' (2021), written and directed by Henrika Kull, stars Adam Hoya and Katharina Behrens. The film follows a relationship between Maria (Hoya) and Sacsha (Behrens), two women who meet each other while employed as sex workers in the same brothel in Berlin. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Amanda Hunt" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The (Un)disputed Portrait of the Middle-Class A review on ‘Sarajevo Roses and Clouds of June’ exhibition by Samra Šabanović and Sheung Yiu at Third Space, Helsniki. "Issue 8" "Review" "" "Fjolla Hoxha" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Choreographing Dissonance: A Response to Mishandled Archive Mishandled Archive started in 2017 when Tara Fatehi Irani dispersed an archive of family photographs and documents in public places and created a dance at the site of each dispersal–once a day for a whole year. This led to the creation of a new archive of 365 photographs and dance scores, a performance-installation and a book. In summer 2021, Tara presented the first outdoor performance of Mishandled Archive. She invited poet Nisha Ramayya to attend this performance and write a response to it –to write around and through the performance and its themes, to create a text that thinks with this performance and allows its readers an alternative way into the project. "Issue 8" "Essay" "" "Nisha Ramayya" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Temporary Peace To find yourself in a new Syrian school, established in a residential building in Turkey, that teaches the Libyan curriculum to freshly-arrived Syrians, makes you want to tell stories about it. "Issue 8" "Essay" "" "Shahi Derky" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Khadar Ahmed: The King of "No" I’m so tired of seeing depressing African films about slavery and civil wars; about suffering. And though I wanted to address an issue like the health crisis in Africa, I wanted to tell it through love. "Issue 8" "Interview" "" "Sharron L. Todd" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Eva-Lisa’s Monument: Caring for the Archive of a Trans Pioneer Sam Hultin introduces the listener to Eva-Lisa, Transvestia, and Sam’s project, Eva-Lisa’s Monument. In the project, which consists of guided walking tours, collective readings, and anniversaries, Sam invites today’s trans community to activate the archive that Eva-Lisa created during her life as an activist and that Sam took over after Eva-Lisa’s passing. "Issue 8" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Sam Hultin" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Ordinary Life But what if I am comfortable in my own space? What if I don’t want to defy the impossible and all I want is to achieve my goals peacefully? Why should I compete fiercely with others to achieve my aims? "Issue 8" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Noura Selmi" /issue-8//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly What Would I Rather The starting points of this work were related to relaxation and finding one’s own space. The picture has direct and indirect hints from which you can deduce the soundtrack of the illustration. "Issue 8" "Art" "" "Warda Ahmed" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly In the Crisis of Time I believe that exhibitions have a reality-making capacity and a role in shaping public opinion. They can uphold, underpin or prop up ideas that are undervalued. Can curating then expand the way time is generally perceived? Can it attend to the crises of hope? An overview of display practices’ history at least reveals that curating has always reflected the current approach to time. "Issue 7" "Essay" "" "Mariliis Rebane" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Vulnerability is coming I am fascinated by memories from my childhood in the ’90s. I remember that there were posters around Finland back then (and later on), attached to various places by some religious groups. The posters said in bold capital letters “JESUS IS COMING ARE YOU READY” written in Finnish. "Issue 7" "Art" "" "Minkki Nurmi" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A I S T I T – Coming to Our Senses: A Review in Three Paths A I S T I T – coming to our senses is a traveling exhibition with a satellite programme, a publication and three part podcast and it happened/will happen in various locations in Paris, London, Berlin, Helsinki, and Ghent. Since the exhibition deals with the senses my plan for the review was to try and experience it primarily from a non-visual perspective and focus on how the exhibition brings in the audience and allows them to experience and feel their way through the works. "Issue 7" "Review" "" "Timo S. Tuhkanen" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Silent “Forest” "Issue 7" "Essay" "" "Ingrid Fadnes" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Seeing My Self-Image in Dolls That Imitate the Sámi People Dolls that imitate the Sámi can be purchased at a souvenir shop or flea market, where they usually end up. There I face these dolls, as our paths cross second-hand and intertwine into a play in the quiet hours, hidden from view. Why do I get the impression that when the dolls are abandoned, they are at their most revealing? The setting is always the same: a brightly coloured gift shelf, a shabby box, or a vague, provocative shelf. "Issue 7" "Essay" "" "Helga West" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Hello World: Tell Me if Something Bad Happens I often wonder if it is a specific language that working-class families speak. When the possibilities of the world feel so limited through money and social power, are we even allowed to dream? Knowing how the world can derail dreams, the parents of these families assume the role of society before their children ever leave the home. "Issue 7" "Review" "" "Shia Conlon" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Nowhere Inn: a shrewd and comical meta-documentary But is there some kind of inner logic or consistency in this film? I experience that consistency is expressed as the constant chaos of human identity and existence. We try to manage our identity and see our lives as a comprehensive, logical narrative and consistent journey. In reality, we are more or less lost as to our identity and ourselves all the time. "Issue 7" "Review" "" "Riku Lehtoranta" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Guest Editorial / November 2021 After a long period of silence in live artistic acts since last year, we have realized how powerful live art can be to build a sense of kindness among strangers that are standing at the same place, same time, enjoying the same live act. A kindness that could be an initial point for a radical care action. Art can make visible that care is not only a human relationship, and that is the central point of the Baltic Circle Festival and this current Issue. "Issue 7" "Editorial" "" "Hector Sanchez" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Magic, Intergenerational Trauma & Snail Shells: Conversation With KaffeochBulla The way I learned to connect with Kaffeochbulla was mainly through art and usually in a very straightforward manner. They would hand me zines, prints, stickers, earrings or clothes upon meeting, and always ask what I've been doing or experimenting with. It has always felt vulnerable in a nice way and that these exchanges of art, thoughts and treasures weave little webs of support and excitement for one another. "Issue 7" "Interview" "" "Vilu Puttonen" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Moment of Welcoming: Conversation With Eleni Tsitsirikou It’s easy to remember when I met Eleni Tsitsirikou. It was on the day of my arrival from Berlin to Helsinki for my curatorial residency at HIAP. On Wednesday, 1 November 2017, I felt nervous looking for the entrance of Kaapeli, the Cable Factory. But there was Eleni waiting for me with a welcoming smile. Since then, throughout the residency, she was the person that I could turn to, making me feel at home. If there is a heart to an organisation, it would be Eleni for HIAP. "Issue 7" "Interview" "" "An Paenhuysen" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Cruelty of Impatience ``` waiting for my girlfriend to come to me waiting for my girlfriend to come for me waiting for my girlfriend to laugh at me – so I can weep waiting for my test results to rescue me ``` "Issue 7" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Golnoosh Nour" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly In defense of works-in-progress Publishing creative works-in-progress is something we should be doing more of. Floating in a space of incompleteness, in-the-making-ness, and reckoning with each other is something we should be doing more of. And if anything, questing for certainty and completion in our industry is compromising our art on a collective level. "Issue 7" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Emma de Carvalho" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Daddy’s Girl On her third birthday, I got my youngest daughter a toy space soldier. It was a male action figure in a mech suit. The helmet slid back to reveal a solemn face. Fifteen years later, I still cringe at my blunder. "Issue 7" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Toshiya Kamei" /issue-7//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Productive Bodies, Care and Destruction Through everyday engagement with industrial materials and machines, workers often develop strong attachment and a sense of pride towards industries. However, increased care about the industry may influence workers’ estrangement from their bodily needs. As a result, they start prioritizing productivity over their health and well-being. I define intertwined relations of industrial attachment and self-damage as “destructive care.” "Issue 7" "Research paper" "" "Anna Varfolomeeva" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Window to Listen For this digital space given to us, we opened a Pandora’s Box to reveal why today some of us are still excluded from the so-called ‘winner’s table’. We decided to have a conversation to reflect on the Finnish chapters of our lives, our dreams, and achievements, but we also talked about simple things that could unveil sophistication hidden in simplicity if one wishes to see it. "Issue 6" "Essay" "" "Sepideh Rahaa, Ceyda Berk-Söderblom" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Why Are Community-Based Organisations Needed? Ubuntu Film Club (Alice Mutoni, Rewina Teklai, Fiona Musanga) in conversation with Good Hair Day (Saida Mäki-Penttilä, Paloma Sandberg, Akunna Onwen) about why community-based organisations are needed? "Issue 6" "Interview" "" "Ubuntu Film Club" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Never Gonna Snow Again: a hypnotic take on the environmental downfall *Never Gonna Snow Again* really raises the concerns around environmentalism. It’s trying to tell this message of a failing world through some humour and fantasy. The protagonist's integration into this Polish community is like a wake-up call to the inhabitants, who many seem to be oblivious to the growing issue of climate change. "Issue 6" "Review" "" "Maria Koskivirta" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / October 2021 the brown women looked up, befuddled. must we continue doing this? net-lifting every blow? or should we shoulder instead each other’s politicality? centre pleasure, read love poetry "Issue 6" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Continuance between Art, Art-Space and Audience: conversation with Kihwa-Endale I still remember the first time I saw Kihwa-Endale artwork in her studio. She was painting on transparent surfaces and mirrors. The paintings were getting alive, reflecting the light, the space around it and showing you your own reflection. Kihwa-Endale explained that the artworks were meant to portray multiple realities coexisting and play with the viewer. "Issue 6" "Interview" "" "Thomas Moose" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Memoria: On Remembrance and Stillness The captivating nature of *Memoria* depends on the work of some notable artists. The eccentric Tilda Swinton stars as the leading figure, Jessica, whose life suddenly starts revolving around a strange, unrecognizable sound that keeps interrupting her everyday life. The urge to find it is intertwined with and partly hidden in the subtlety of her obsession for more. Swinton’s acting is stripped of emotion but not unfeeling, for she has the great skill of reserving considerable emotion behind the minimalistic expression. "Issue 6" "Review" "" "Alba Ala-Pietilä" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Question In this podcast, Princess Jimenez takes listeners on a journey through the central topic of how migrants and refugees are always asked "what are you doing here?" Or "if you don't like it, leave". Listen to Princess Jimenez's unflinching responses as she siezes the bull by the horns in response to such racist questions. "Issue 6" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Princess Jimenez" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly E T A J Artist-Run Space, the ‘Make It’ Experience in the Art World This is a story about a small group of young artists in Romania (zoom-in on Bucharest, please) and their endeavour of trying to make it in the Art world. We do not know how this will turn out. "Issue 6" "Essay" "" "Ilina Schileru" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Dear, don’t forget to bring a carton of milk on your way home x In August 2021 Mourning School (Rosa Paardenkooper, Lucie Gottlieb), a long-term curatorial study program based in Stockholm and Dear, (Martha Jager) an Amsterdam-based artist initiative, gathered on Vifarnaholme, an island in Lake Malaren, near the city centre of Stockholm. During their week-long residency there they worked collaboratively on a series of five letters written or otherwise composed by invited artists, authors and poets. This audio essay is built up with hyperlinks that direct readers & listeners to different parts of the mix that connect to the respective words/phrases. The endnotes to the essay form a tracklist. "Issue 6" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Mourning School, Dear," /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly I Versus Us Versus I To be received by the artist, to be held by their presence and attentively guided into and through the work, in a personalised performance feels timely. After a long period of self-containment and social isolation— protecting each other and ourselves through reducing contact—this personalised care and shared intimacy with another feels like tending wounds. As a guest, you are “hand-guided” through artworks dealing with uncomfortable “subjects”, ones that puncture our boundaries and explicate the uncontainability of our bodies and interdependencies with others. "Issue 6" "Review" "" "Yvonne Billimore" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Diaspora Mixtapes: Towards a Politics of Black Filmmaking In this piece, I explore the interrelatedness of visuality, black displacement and black diaspora. *Diaspora Mixtapes* makes apparent the efficacy of visual representations as an artistic genre that implicitly addresses questions of border regimes, queer belonging, and self-representation. Furthermore, *Diaspora Mixtapes* exemplifies the contemporary inclination to make visible black cultural exchanges. "Issue 6" "Review" "" "Milka Njoroge" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Curating from the perspective of an artist: conversation with Anna Ruth This interview is a transcription from a recorded verbal dialogue that happened on a balcony while five other friends were eating, listening to music and dancing in the other room. In this transcription we wished to communicate the feeling of thinking through talking as it happens in real dialogues, holding a glass of red wine, sensing on our faces the fragrant sting of summer wind, on a late evening. "Issue 6" "Interview" "" "Egle Oddo" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly This is meant to be This is meant to be translated Ĉi tio celas esti tradukita al la angla per Google Translate. Ĝi povas legi ĉi tion al vi laŭte. "Issue 6" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Niko Tii Nurmi Sipiläinen" /issue-6//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Untitled I personally don’t like to be touched so I rarely get my hair done. I wanted to capture that moment of how it feels for me in the first hour of braiding since I can’t quite put it into words. There's anxiety but also excitement. A feeling of foreignness but also of belonging, warmth and kinship. It’s ordinary and also a special occasion. "Issue 6" "Art" "" "Jade Lönnqvist" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / September 2021 Both catastrophe, and ‘comfortable’ routine, bring impatience. While our catastrophic impatience stems in part from repeated accounts of our trust being mishandled, it also stems from a desire for some form of express speed justice – so that we can do what we can and move on to what we want to do. However, this approach usually leaves little room for dialogue and understanding of each other’s points of view. "Issue 5" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Towards Monstrous Pedagogies *Can a child be a monster?* asks journalist Päivi Happonen in an opinion piece published by YLE last year, responding to a case of violent abuse in which four students physically harassed a younger student in their schoolyard in Vantaa during breaktime. The injuries were severe enough for school staff to call an ambulance. In past decades, Finnish society has witnessed several cases of major physical abuse on school premises and violence against teaching staff. Add to this, three school shootings and two other deadly uses of weapons in school facilities between 1981 and 2019. "Issue 5" "Research paper" "" "Emma Hovi" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Mèconnaissance in Mänttä It was a sensation that returned to me again this summer, when I found myself approaching the Mänttä Fine Arts exhibition space, Pekilo: A feeling of warmth, comfort, familiarity. A feeling of homecoming. I mark that this too came on the heels of enduring isolation. "Issue 5" "Review" "" "Raine Aiava" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly We should change the way we talk about the suburbs in Finland What would happen to storytelling, urban planning, and decision-making if we shifted the perspective on Kontula and other similar neighbourhoods and started to ask what they need? "Issue 5" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "FEMMA Planning" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Privilege Is in the Eye of the Beholder Iduozee believes that especially in the United States, the political climate has been operating by pitting mostly poor white people against minorities. However, Iduozee finds this narrative narrow, as it overlooks the middle-class and upper-middle-class people who benefit from racist and unequal structures. Racism is not just perpetuated by poor white people. The narrative that suggests this, is classicist and allows the middle-classes to feel superior and to distance themselves from far-right rhetoric and ideology. "Issue 5" "Review" "" "Ndéla Faye" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A point of return I listen to my own heartbeat and the fluids stream in my gut system. There is a pace in the body that resembles musical elements; there’s loops, rhythmic patterns, melodic streams, there’s ambience. There is constant rhythm and movement inside the body as there is outside of it, in the earth, in the stars, in the wind, in the waters. "Issue 5" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Kiia Beilinson" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Ragesong Sister! We are dripping with rage a diamond in the shape of a tongue it blinds, gives life, so sharp it cuts "Issue 5" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Golnoosh Nour" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Our Efforts to Show Solidarity for Palestine Are Tested at Kiasma With this text, we hope to renew a sincere belief that united art workers can do good by calling for candid public discussion on difficult matters. We wish to make clear some of the political affiliations held by the Kiasma Support Foundation, especially in relation to the colonial politics by the State of Israel and hope that this text will open a dialogue with workers of the National Gallery, who despite prevailing uncertainty, remain motivated to better their organization. We hope that art administrators in Finland will usher forward programs, which manifest their political desires and illustrate how they imagine the institutions they lead serving the public. "Issue 5" "Essay" "" "Pietari Kylmälä, Eero Yli-Vakkuri" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On “The Feeling of Being on Display and Under Pressure” — a Conversation With Man Yau Craftsmanship that leaves a polished finishing and evocative historical notions hidden underneath the fine details. Man Yau’s work with ceramic installations arrests the viewer, while encouraging to revisit and contemplate the uncanny contemporaneity that the artworks embody. In this interview, we discuss artistic processes, practices and labour as well as the intertwining of the personal and the thematic in Yau’s two exhibitions from the spring 2021: M.Y. Chinoiserie at Kuvan Kevät, Exhibition Laboratory, and Dried flowers last forever at Boy Konsthall. "Issue 5" "Interview" "" "Nimco Kulmiye Hussein" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly On Soft Alphabets and the Hues of an Inside: An Interview With Corinna Helenelund I leave my bike on the side of the market square next to the pier where the ferry to Suomenlinna island goes. I look around, trying to spot Corinna; we have never met before. My first impressions of her base on our exchange of emails, a delicate mind-map she shared with me, and on what I know of her work. Corinna arrives with a light pushchair and a lively child in a baby carrier against her chest. They have come to Helsinki before heading to the archipelago, and we have decided to take a walk in Suomenlinna. It would be easier to talk while moving since the young, involuntary participant might get restless with no action around. "Issue 5" "Interview" "" "Elina Nissinen" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Shrödinger’s Backflip Sometimes, the role of the facilitator is to take a step back and just let things happen. Sometimes, the role is to steer the subject to where they need to be. And, sometimes, the role can only be defined in retrospect. Hindsight, once again, is a gift. There is a point in our timeline where the potential for all possible outcomes exists. Being mindful of the fact that I, as facilitator, cannot in that moment know for sure which outcome is the best and respecting that potential, I believe, is the key to successful facilitation. "Issue 5" "Essay" "" "Julian Owusu" /issue-5//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly It is Only the End of the World I did the work improvising it along the way during spring and summer 2021. The picture resembles a message or a notice board. There are small bits of drawing/painting/text done on a piece of paper that I had with me for some months in my backpack. I liked the idea that the image and the paper have aged - that the passing of time has left its marks on the work. "Issue 5" "Art" "" "Ville Vuorenmaa" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / June 2021 The dual mode of imagination that an outsider is compelled to maintain is neither reductive nor simple. Their silenced voices are always looking to re-occupy the spaces which have been denied to them or are being appropriated by those who claim to speak on their behalf. These various types of knowledges must be able to be performed in our voices. At NO NIIN, we are looking at the peculiarities of urgent and necessary voices, their chaos, and meaningful instances of the contributors’ non-standard, personalized orthography of every issue. "Issue 4" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly All I Want to Do Is to Hold Your Hand and Cry the Tears of Joy Independently from one another, we began reclaiming a loudly crying face to denote the feeling of being overwhelmingly pained by beauty and our inability to grasp it fully. "Issue 4" "Essay" "" "Vera Kavaleuskaya" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Who Has Freedom of Speech in Art? Who has the freedom of speech in art? What about the responsibility of speech? Can artworks be misinterpreted? Why do some people’s opinions weigh more than others? What is institutional responsibility? What about the media’s responsibility? "Issue 4" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Ristena Biret Kirstte Nilla Pinja, Pinja Pieski" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Visit Palestine It is December 2018, my sister and I are in a city we’ve only heard of from stories. Jerusalem, we are walking through the marketplace in the Old City, as shiny things are being packed up we are surrounded by a soft clatter, as lights dim down and everyone slows down, to stop for the day "Issue 4" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Kihwa-Endale" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Intersectional Feminist intersectional feminist hands me a copy of how to talk about race recites a land acknowledgment to honor the native tribes who have been displaced to make space for the organic açaí bar we frequent "Issue 4" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Nina Mufleh" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Nettles in the Summer To connect-the-dots once more, sharing a collection of songs – or a single song really – is very much similar to sharing emotions, skills, knowledges, time, food, or a room. Like being on a film set, a screening room, or a conversation together. Like sending the spontaneous text message to a stranger telling them how much you enjoyed their film. "Issue 4" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Danai Anagnostou" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Celebration of Distant Bodies From our deepest desire to gather an imagined collectivity around us, we fantasize about going to each and every one of our friends, kin and relatives’ places to collect some garments they no longer use, as if they could be keepsakes of their presence. We sent out one hundred identical letters, with an invitation to send us one piece of their old clothes, no longer useful in their closet. If we united them all—we thought—we would be reunited again. "Issue 4" "Essay" "" "Golrokh Nafisi" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Mixing Everything With Everything in Everything — an Interview With Hertta Kiiski As soon as I sit in the front seat of the car the size of a herring tin, I understand where the opulent descriptions of Hertta are coming from. Her joy, warmth, and charisma tangle around me and fill the insides of the tiny Fiat. "Issue 4" "Interview" "" "Sanna Ritvanen" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly But Not Without a Few Battle Scars Arriving at a particular watershed moment, Six years in the Third Space is an online publication that earmarks a key milestone in the course of the physical space existing in the city since 2013. It embodies and carries forward the hybridised in-betweenness which the physical space attempts to live by. Informed by a large network of collaborators and shared stories, the collection becomes a living organism, an orbiting satellite — autonomous and yet, carrying the identity of the body that it takes after. "Issue 4" "Review" "" "Shubhangi Singh" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Six Years Though a small-scale artist-run institution, Sorbus presents itself in the back cover of *Wasted Years* as creating conditions and generating alternative approaches through art activism. "Issue 4" "Review" "" "Marina Valle Noronha" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Written on Ice: Edible Memories of the Neighborhood of San Juan *Written on Ice: Edible Memories of the Neighborhood of San Juan* has been a six-month-long collective exercise where memories and identities have been transformed into six symbolic edible objects: ice-cream flavors. "Issue 4" "Essay" "" "Martina Miño Pérez" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Affordable Views During this essay, I will reveal how I learned to free myself from work when I was 15 and also amuse you with the intricate ways money developed a firm grip on me later as I fell into a wealth trap at 32 years of age. "Issue 4" "Essay" "" "Sami Juhani Rekola" /issue-4//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly An Equivalence of Our Distance In this project, 100 letters were sent to the friends, relatives and acquaintances of the organizing team. The letter described how much we missed their hugs, which had been withheld for a year due to COVID. The addressees were asked to send us an item of clothing that was old, worn out, and had seen its last days in their closet. "Issue 4" "Art" "" "Golrokh Nafisi" /issue-3//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / May 2021 If art has the bandwidth to hold our rejections, emotions, identities, anxiety and insecurities, what kind of an art scene does that make for those who manage the double shift of the immigrant and the professional? "Issue 3" "Editorial" "" "Vidha Saumya" /issue-3//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Confessions of a recovering Artist Burning out led to a long process of defining sustainable practices, learning to say no and, from time to time, relapsing. Now that I have made the decision to say that I don’t make art, I would love to share a few insights about how to make agreements and tackle different collaborations within the arts. "Issue 3" "Essay" "" "Riikka Kuoppala" /issue-3//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly What Do I Call You? I am the type of person who needs names and distinction in characteristics to comprehend whatever is happening in my world. I often blame it on growing up as a middle child in an immigrant family: the constant and urgent need to discern and explain what is mine and not. I am Minjee. I am Korean. I am a woman. Where are you from? What is your pronoun? What do I call you? "Issue 3" "Essay" "" "Minjee Hwang Kim" /issue-3//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Movement and Resistance: An Interview With Noora Geagea I had just visited Noora’s latest exhibition *Still Struggling* at The Platform Gallery. Noora’s art probes the absurdities of everyday life: plain for everyone to see, but easy to miss. It also immerses, engulfs. It addresses the usually overlooked, but unavoidable, vital. "Issue 3" "Interview" "" "Julia Kartesalo" /issue-3//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Producing and Practicing Presence. Digital Commoning Practices in Oksasenkatu 11. It is productive to imagine commoning as a digital network, where, unlike with embodied presence, it’s impossible to be simultaneously present and absent – you are either online or not. "Issue 3" "Review" "" "Ksenia Kaverina" /issue-3//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly From Memories Through the Soil to the Future To write this review in a post isolationist time, it actually took me three trips to get my head around the exhibition, the feel of the island, the spring, and the memories. Especially after coming across a rumor that the independence of Taidekoulu MAA and other private institutions like it are being threatened by cuts in funding. This review is a description of my trail through the exhibition, followed by ruminations on the situation that MAA is facing, based on a chat I had with MAA's current principal, Minna Henriksson. "Issue 3" "Review" "" "Juha Hilpas" /issue-3//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Gross & Melancholic Losing her podcast virginity to NO NIIN magazine, in her pristine-falling-short-of-ASMR-voice, Roxana zig-zags drawing an apoplectic line between her comedic influences, her underwear & death fantasies, and solid advice given to Karl Lagerfeld by his mother. 17 minutes, with a singular goal: to understand how the hell did she end up being a half-baked comedian? "Issue 3" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Roxana Sadvokassova" /issue-3//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Places Perhaps what makes me who I am is not only the things I have now but also the things I have lost or I long for. "Issue 3" "Art" "" "Risako Yamanoi" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly About My Mother: A Series of Open Letters to Chris Kraus — Part I Dear Chris, Consent is a narrow motorway and I’m walking on, half naked on the kerb, clutching my shoes, my books and her words like a schoolgirl at dawn, hoping I’ll be home. "Issue 2" "Essay" "" "Carlota Mir" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly I Can’t Believe What You Say, Because I See What You Do What started with a few questions regarding the nature of the open call soon grew into a heated debate and triggered an opportunity for the exposure of several arguments and points of view in the form of a much-needed conversation. "Issue 2" "Essay" "" "Farbod Fakharzadeh" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Finding Forms to Recognise Warmth: A Conversation With Bogna Luiza Wisniewska I guess this need for touch is so present now, It’s something I noticed not only in my work but all around. And when I’m producing [new work] I wanted to give this feeling of tangible fingers or tongues, this feeling of touch. "Issue 2" "Interview" "" "Katie Lenanton" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Midsummer Encounter Maybe I wanted to believe that deep inside, all humans are artists. "Issue 2" "Essay" "" "Tuomo Tuovinen" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Long Line of Characters: Getting to Know the Life and Work of Kirsti Tuokko I don’t believe in inspiration. I go to the studio all the time and I might sit there and read my phone if I don’t do anything, but I need to get there. Mostly even if you think nothing will happen there, you might just catch the most essential small idea that you start to develop. "Issue 2" "Interview" "" "Saara Mahbouba" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / April 2021 Sooner or later, the voice in your speech becomes watchful and you tread softly to avoid stirring the one-culture pot. With a thawing sharpness, you become that token brown person who is professional and diligent, accepting and forgiving. "Issue 2" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly To Be a Verb Sometimes, Sometimes a Noun The elation of being able to travel, being able to see an art exhibition in the first place. I pranced around the space in wonder and confusion. Art objects are still being brought together in rooms. My body gets to be here and I don’t know exactly what to make of it. "Issue 2" "Review" "" "Even Minn" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Dosai Aunty She was a real author who had published real books and I was a fake author that only wrote books my mama and papa would buy. I beg to differ. My papa ravaged by dementia had lost his ability to read and my mama whose sole purpose in life now revolved around caring for him, or talking about caring for him, had lost the desire. "Issue 2" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Tania Nathan" /issue-//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Spring Blues, Tenderly It’s only April now. For me, this is often a time of introspection. My thoughts have revolved around softness and coldness, joy and fear, love and sorrow. Each year, Spring seems to invite me to shed another hard shell I’ve outgrown, remove a layer of protective wear, leave the old ideas of self I’ve confined myself in and make room for new growth…. "Issue " "" "" "Maija Baijukya" /issue-2//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Mitäpä jos (What if) What if nothing doesn’t actually ever get ruined? Or at least not that bad. Maybe it just finished completely different than you thought. "Issue 2" "Art" "" "Minkki Nurmi" /issue-1//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly The Finding of Hän *The Finding of Hän* is an original puppet theater production that explores the inherent duality of human nature and imagines the lifespan of an ancient object. Themes and characters are drawn from coastal cultures and stories from around the world. "Issue 1" "Art" "" "Paola de Ramos, M. Hasnan Habib, Parsa Kamehkhosh, Niko Skorpio, Melanie Popp" /issue-1//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly To Follow a Ball of Yarn: A Conversation With Shubhangi Singh I feel there’s nothing to do for me but to constantly make and create more spaces. It is like drilling through existing hard shelled spaces, cemented in their ways. "Issue 1" "Interview" "" "Paola Jalili" /issue-1//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly A Longing for Something Written in Memory **Kirjasto/ Library** does not formally announce a thematic drive at its outset, but situates itself within an abstract idea ‘archiving’, or of what a collection, library, or an archive could be. "Issue 1" "Review" "" "Ali Akbar Mehta" /issue-1//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Dear museum of Bad Art (MoBA) Art universities didn’t teach you that art was a game with certain rules, they rather taught you how to worship the ones who’d figured it all out by themselves. But how about those of us who didn’t want to play by the rules, what was our alternative? "Issue 1" "Essay" "" "Aneta Atsova" /issue-1//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Achievement ≠ Happiness Vacationing requires taking the risk of being bored. No planning. No aspirations. No goals. No distractions. In a world filled with products and services marketing distraction as ‘happiness’, and in a work environment where multitasking is the norm and nothing is ever enough, vacation should be *the opposite.* "Issue 1" "Essay" "" "Hanna Järvinen" /issue-1//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Editorial / March 2021 Our work is not separate from the life we are living: it is threatening and at the same time very very satisfying. "Issue 1" "Editorial" "" "Elham Rahmati, Vidha Saumya" /issue-1//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly To Run Deep Down Somewhere To Run Deep Down Somewhere is a playlist I put together with 40 of my all-time favourite love songs. I made the playlist in 2019. I had turned 30 that year, so naturally, I was going through this unnecessary dramatic emotional phase where I imagined myself as the cynical heroine of a 60’s French New Wave film. "Issue 1" "Podcasts and playlists" "" "Elham Rahmati" /issue-1//index.html 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z weekly Sky Additional vocabulary could mean The fog spilled in ... "Issue 1" "Poetry & short fiction" "" "Shia Conlon"