Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities Autumn 2021

Secured – Politics of Bodies and Spaces

Exhibition Vantaa Art Museum Artsi (Myyrmäkitalo, Paalutori 3, Vantaa) 9 September – 24 October 2021 Tue – Wed 11–18 / Thu 13–20 / Fri 11–18 / Sat – Sun 11–16 / Mon closed

Panos Balomenos, Forensic Architecture, Elis Hannikainen & Vappu Jalonen, Flo Kasearu,  Kristina Norman, Sepideh Rahaa, Annika Rauhala, Shubhangi Singh and Hito Steyerl.
Hosted by Vantaa Art Museum Artsi and Frame Contemporary Art Finland

Safety is a basic human need. But how to create and maintain safety and security? Who is protected, and from what or whom? How to bring the politics of security into contemporary art and society at large? Presenting a variety of artist’s and approaches, the exhibition challenges and re-thinks safeness and security, and confronts different forms of violence in contemporary life and culture.  

How to attend:

The museum follows Covid-19 safety guidelines issued by the city and government. For information on visiting the exhibition safely during Covid-times, please visit: https://www.artsimuseo.com/eng/safemuseumvisit

Access: 

Free admission. In the exhibition, information can be found in Finnish, Swedish, English, and Russian. Venue: There is an obstacle-free entry to Artsi via the Myyrmäki House main entrance and lobby. The main entrance is on Paalutori Square. The main entrance doors open automatically. On Fridays after 16:00 and on Sundays, when the rest of Myyrmäki House is closed, Artsi can be accessed by its own entrance on Paalutori Square. Artsi’s own entrance door does not open automatically. More information on accessibility can be found here: https://www.artsimuseo.com/eng/accessibility

Forensic Architecture: Outsourcing Risk

Exhibition

Museum of Finnish Architecture, Studio (Kasarmikatu 24, Helsinki)
10 September– 24 October 2021
Tue 11–18, Wed 11–20, Thu–Sun 11–18

Forensic Architecture
Hosted by Museum of Finnish Architecture

The Museum of Finnish Architecture’s Studio presents Forensic Architecture’s video documentary Outsourcing risk: The Ali Enterprises Factory Fire (2018).

Two hundred fifty-nine people died when the Ali Enterprises textile factory in Karachi, Pakistan, was gutted by fire on 11 September 2012. The video shows how Forensic Architecture carried out an architectural analysis of the fire. According to the research team, inadequate fire safety measures at the factory led to the catastrophic death toll. The video documentary reminds us what kinds of outsourced risks, inequality, and violence are built into the global division of labour and international supply chains.

How to attend:

Free admission. Currently MFA admits 2 persons at a time into the Studio exhibition space.

For information on visiting the exhibition safely during Covid-19 times, please visit: https://www.mfa.fi/en/welcome-to-the-museum-of-finnish-architecture/

Access: 

Languages: English with Finnish subtitles.

Venue: The museum building is not fully wheelchair-accessible. The museum does not have an entrance with no access barriers. The most convenient entrance for disabled visitors is located at the inner courtyard of the building. The courtyard entrance has a stone doorstep, with a metal ramp providing better access. The door is locked, and visitors need to ring the buzzer to have it opened. Inside the door, a ramp leads to the lift. For more information visit: https://www.mfa.fi/en/visit-us/accessibility-2/

Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 3

Publication

Hard copies and digital open access-format: download
Published by Frame Contemporary Art Finland and Archive Books

Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 3, published in September 2021, is the third in a series of readers published by Frame Contemporary Art Finland and Archive Books, which accompany Frame’s five-year public programme Rehearsing Hospitalities.

The 2021 edition is proposed as a site for meeting around matters of security, safety and care. It seeks to complicate our understandings of hospitality and security and the multifaceted ways in which they affect, touch, shape and control our lives.

Contributors include: Karen Barad, Ama Josephine Budge, Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide, Aslak Holmberg, Milla Kallio/FEMMA Planning, Christine Langinauer, Yates Norton, Natasa Petresin-Bachelez & Elena Sorokina, Nat Raha, Shubhangi Singh, Elina Suoyrjö, Rosario Talevi, Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen, Eero Yli-Vakkuri and the series editors Yvonne Billimore and Jussi Koitela. 

How to get a copy: 

The publication will be released on Wednesday 8 September, with a limited number of copies gifted to audiences during the launch event at Vantaa Art Museum Artsi. Hard-copies are distributed by Archive Books and will also be available to buy from the bookshop at Vantaa Art Museum Artsi. Digital versions are available open access-format on Archive Books’ and Frame’s websites.

Access: 

Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 3 is published in English, and the digital version is suitable for screen readers.

Artsi exhibition opening and Frame publication launch, with performances

Onsite event, with performance documentation shared online after event

Vantaa Art Museum Artsi (Myyrmäkitalo, Paalutori 3, Vantaa)
8 September 2021
3–7 pm (EEST). Live speeches and performances: 5–7 pm (EEST)

Performances by Ama Josephine Budge, Shubhangi Singh, Nat Raha
and Sepideh Rahaa.
Hosted by Vantaa Art Museum Artsi and Frame Contemporary Art Finland

Register here to attend the opening
Registration closes at 10am 8 September 2021

This event combines the opening of Vantaa Art Museum Artsi’s exhibition Secured – Politics of Bodies and Spaces with the launch of Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 3, the third in a series of readers published by Frame Contemporary Art Finland and Archive Books. 

The event celebrates with performances and readings from artists featured in the exhibition and the publication. Ama Josephine Budge and Nat Raha’s readings of their texts in the publication are performed remotely and screened, while Shubhangi Singh and Sepideh Rahaa will perform onsite.

During the event, audiences can receive a complimentary copy of the publication and visit the exhibition at their leisure. Live speeches and performances will take place from 5–7 pm. Recordings of the performances will be compiled and shared on Vantaa Art Museum Artsi’s website and Frame’s Youtube channel after the event.

Opening programme:

The venues for the opening programme are Artsi’s exhibition hall and Kino Myyri movie theatre, both are situated in Myyrmäkitalo.

3–5 and 5.30–7 pm open doors to the exhibition / EXHIBITION HALL
5 pm performance by Sepideh Rahaa (30 mins) / EXHIBITION HALL
3–6 pm video readings by Ama Josephine Budge and Nat Raha / KINO MYYRI
6 pm performance by Shubhangi Singh (30 mins) / KINO MYYRI

Please note: Admittance to the live performances is limited to 25 people due to current restrictions for public events. Reservations can not be made, please be prepared that might not be possible to gain entrance to the live performances.

How to attend: 

Please register for this event so we can send updates of any changes and plan for capacity. We will limit the number of visitors to the exhibition space at a time. Entrance to the Museum will adhere to Covid-19 safety guidelines issued by the city and government. We ask audiences to keep safe distances and wear masks. If you are experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 please stay at home. For information on visiting the exhibition safely during Covid-19 times, please visit: https://www.artsimuseo.com/eng/safemuseumvisit

Access: 

Live speeches and performances are mainly in English. Captions in English are on all online recorded works. 

Venue: There is an obstacle-free entry to Artsi via the Myyrmäki House main entrance and lobby. The main entrance is on Paalutori Square. The main-entrance doors open automatically. More information on accessibility can be found here: https://www.artsimuseo.com/eng/accessibility

Curating with matters of security, safety and care

Online round table discussion

Zoom (additionally streamed live on Frame’s YouTube channel)
9 September 2021
4–6.30 pm (EEST)

Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide, Yates Norton, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez & Elena Sorokina and Rosario Talevi
Hosted by Frame Contemporary Art Finland

Register here
Registration closes at 10am 9 September 2021

This online event stems from a series of short notations featured in the Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 3 publication on curatorial practices of hospitality, care, safety and security. The event brings together five curators, Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide, Yates Norton, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez & Elena Sorokina and Rosario Talevi, with their differing approaches and experiences for an informal round table discussion.

Publication editors Yvonne Billimore and Jussi Koitela host the event. They asked each of the curators to respond to a provocation asking them, “how do concepts and practices of hospitality, security, safety and care shape your work, and how can they be nurtured within a curatorial practice?”

Their written reflections in the publication discuss a range of curatorial practices, from architectural and social practices to working with museums and exhibitions. Each contributor opens up methodologies, projects, thinking and the rehearsing of ideas in public. In the event, they present their short texts and discuss them in more detail. They also respond to questions from audiences.

How to attend / capacity: 

Please register for this event so we can send updates of any changes. The event takes place on Zoom and we encourage audiences to join us there so they may participate and ask questions. The event will also be streamed live on Frame’s YouTube channel and available to watch after the event. 

Access: 

Online event with regular breaks every hour. The conversation is live with live captioning. Language: English.

Experiments on Togetherness: Herding in Helsinki Central Park

Onsite workshop

10 September
round 1: 1–2.30 pm (EEST) (spaces available)
round 2: 3–4.30 pm (EEST) (fully booked)
Ruskeasuo stables area, exact location confirmed upon booking

Chloë Bass, Mari Keski-korsu and Eero Yli-Vakkuri
Hosted by Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and Frame Contemporary Art Finland

To register via email contact: vilma.leminen@frame-finland.fi
Registration closes at 10am 8 September 2021

A sequence of artworks, exercises and encounters considering different forms of togetherness.

This three-part event hosts contributions from artists Chloë Bass, Mari Keski-korsu, and Eero Yli-Vakkuri. In each part, the artists share their work and invite us into encounters with those around us. We will connect with multiple species from horses to humans to plants through listening exercises, readings, performative presentations, and guided actions.  

The event brings different artistic practices together to consider various dimensions of security, safety and care within interspecies relations. It is also a place to consider ways of being together and how to care for forms of social interaction and togetherness in times of pandemic. 

Care & Control: Eero Yli-Vakkuri  

Drawing on Eero Yli-Vakkuri’s ongoing research with horses, this outdoor session offers  an insight into the daily work of the mounted police and the life of the horses which the police employ. The presentation includes a short introduction to the training methods that the mounted forces deploy when performing crowd control in public spaces. 

The participating group will be tasked to perform light physical exercises designed for dealing with confrontational encounters.

Garden of Agency: Mari Keski-Korsu

Garden of Agency is a project by Mari Keski-Korsu that invites the participants to imagine the relationships between horses and plants. The horses learn about their environment and themselves together with their herd—something humans could do better. In this event, the Garden of Agency is an audio work that takes its participants into a sandy paddock where not many plants thrive, and challenges them to imagine herding in a medicinal garden.

Garden of Agency is an art project on Toiska farm, practising horse therapy in Ilmajoki, Finland. In 2022, a horse pharmacy garden will be planted on the farm. In this garden, the horse herd can find different kinds of plants to support their well-being.  

THE PARTS: Chloë Bass

Chloë Bass is producing a limited edition personal item printed with text from her ongoing series THE PARTS for this event. THE PARTS consists of notes from the artist’s daily life and reflective personal texts, which reside at the intersection of aphorism, diary entry and prose poetry. 

Born on Instagram (@publicinvestigator), the series is now being translated into various physical forms, including a current exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library. The project considers the many registers of personal and public experience as they become living history. Chloë Bass’s contribution is commissioned by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York.

How to attend: 

Registration for this onsite workshop is essential. Participation is limited to 15 participants per round, please book for one round only. We will hold a waiting list, so please ensure you inform us if you can no longer attend. To register via email contact: vilma.leminen@frame-finland.fi

We ask audiences to keep safe distances and may ask for masks to be worn if required. If you are experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 please stay at home. 

Access and practical info:

This event is a participatory workshop held outdoors in the Ruskeasuo stables area. It involves some light movement so please dress suitably and bring water-proof clothing if necessary. Boots/wellington boots are recommended as the ground will be muddy. The event includes moving around the area and some soft exercises that participants can adjust to suit their needs. Part of the session introduces plants; if you have plant allergies, please consult the organisers.

We ask you to bring your own headphones and a device for downloading or streaming audio from Soundcloud. If you don’t have headphones or a suitable device, please contact the organisers, and they will be provided. An email with full instructions will be emailed to participants before the event. 

The language used during the event, audio, and exercises will be English. Unfortunately, this event does not have live interpreters present. The park paths are uneven but still suitable for wheelchairs. Toilets, including wheelchair accessible toilets, are located at the Ruskeasuo Sports Hall (Ratsastie 10, 00280 Helsinki). For further information on the sports hall visit: www.hel.fi/helsinki/fi/kaupunki-ja-hallinto/osallistu-ja-vaikuta/ota-yhteytta/hae-yhteystietoja/toimipistekuvaus?id=42081 

If you require any support to attend this event, please contact: jussi.koitela@frame-finland.fi

Reflecting on Rehearsing Hospitalities 

Onsite workshop

Museum of Finnish Architecture courtyard, Ullanlinnankatu 1–5, Helsinki
11 September
10 am–12.00 pm (EEST)

Alen Ksoll
Hosted by Frame Contemporary Art Finland

To register via email contact: vilma.leminen@frame-finland.fi
Registration closes at 10am 9 September 2021

As part of the Nordic-Baltic Curatorial Research Programme (NBC), curator and art educator Alen Ksoll has been working with Frame to develop a reflective process that bridges the previous Rehearsing Hospitalities gathering and publication with the programme this autumn. 

In this workshop, Alen Ksoll is joined by the programme curators Yvonne Billimore and Jussi Koitela to host an open, reflective process for Rehearsing Hospitalities contributors, partners and public audience members. This workshop takes place at a mid-point in the five-year Rehearsing Hospitalities programme and invites participants to reflect on the autumn gathering events and previous aspects of the programme, and offers an opportunity to consider future directions collectively.

In the session Alen Ksoll invites participants to respond to a short questionnaire, where the emphasis is to speak from personal experience. The questionnaire returns to matters explored during the Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities Spring 2021, including decentralised forms of knowledge, accessibility activism, safer-spaces, and “merpersoning” (presented in the film and event Merpersons by Museum of Impossible Forms). 

In posing these questions for a second time, in new conditions and with new audiences, the workshop seeks to acknowledge that reflection is an ongoing process that constantly needs revisiting to open up new perspectives. The workshop involves individual and collective exercises. 

We invite a range of participants to join this process and appreciate the varying experiences, interests, and knowledge that people carry. Extensive knowledge of the Rehearsing Hospitalities programme is not required, but we hope participants have attended at least one prior event, or engaged with the content online. This workshop involves active participation.

Please note: The previously announced section of this event run by curator Viviana Checchia has unfortunately been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.  

How to attend: 

Registration is essential as this participatory workshop is limited to 20 participants. We will hold a waiting list, so please ensure you inform us if you can no longer attend. To register via email contact: vilma.leminen@frame-finland.fi

The workshop takes place in the MFA courtyard, which is outdoors, so please dress suitably. We ask audiences to keep safe distances and may ask for masks to be worn if required. If you are experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 please stay at home. 

Access: 

The language used during the event and exercises will be English. Unfortunately, this event does not have live interpreters present. If you require any support to attend this event, please contact: jussi.koitela@frame-finland.fi

Venue: This event takes place in the courtyard of the Museum of Finnish Architecture, the building is not fully wheelchair-accessible.The courtyard entrance has a stone doorstep, with a metal ramp providing better access. The door is locked, and visitors need to ring the buzzer to have it opened. Inside the door, a ramp leads to the lift. Toilets,  including wheelchair-accessible toilets, are located  inside  the Museum of Finnish Architecture. The most convenient entrance for disabled visitors is located in the inner courtyard of the building. For more information visit: https://www.mfa.fi/en/visit-us/accessibility-2/

Eyal Weizman: Forensic Architecture

Online Talk 

Zoom (additionally streamed live on Frame’s YouTube channel)
11 September, 1–3 pm (EEST)

Eyal Weizman (Forensic Architecture), moderated by Bassam el Baroni
Hosted by Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Museum of Finnish Architecture and IHME Helsinki

Register here
Registration closes at 10am 10 September 2021

This online talk opens up the work of professor Eyal Weizman and the research agency Forensic Architecture through case studies presentations and conversations. How can architectural tools and approaches be used for forensic analysis? How might we challenge state, corporate and military powers with these methodologies and understand war and conflict, police brutality, border regimes and environmental violence as interconnected processes? 

The talk is moderated by Bassam el Baroni, who is a curator and an assistant professor in curating and mediating art at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University.

How to attend: 

Please register for this event so we can send updates of any changes. The event takes place on Zoom, and we encourage audiences to join us there so they may participate and ask questions. The event will also be streamed live on Frame’s YouTube channel and available to watch after the event. 

Access:

Online event with regular breaks every hour. The conversation is live with live captioning. Language: English.

Panos Balomenos lives and works in Helsinki, Finland and Athens, Greece. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Milan in Italy, the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany and at Kuvataideakatemia in Helsinki. His work has been shown in galleries and museums including Wäinö Aaltonen Museum in Turku (2005), Platform Garantí in Istanbul, (2006), Camões Institute in Lisbon (2008), Museo Baluarte dela Candelaria in Cádiz (2008), Design Museum in Helsinki (2011), Center for Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki (2014), Museum of Applied Arts in Belgrade (2016), ARTag Gallery in Helsinki (2018), Saw Gallery in Ottawa (2019) and Myymälä2 in Helsinki (2019).

Bassam el Baroni is assistant professor in curating at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Finland. Recent curatorial projects include: Infrahauntologies at the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg, Germany, 2021. Some previous curatorial highlights: Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain, 2010 (co-curator); 36th Eva International – Ireland’s Biennial, Limerick, 2014; HOME WORKS 7, Beirut, 2015 (co-curator). He is the author of various essays on artists, art and curating, co-editor of Manual for a Future Desert (Mousse Publishers, 2021), and editor of Between the Material and the Possible: Infrastructural Re-examination and Speculation in Art (forthcoming, Sternberg Press).

Chloë Bass is a multiform conceptual artist working in performance, situation, conversation, publication, and installation. Her work uses daily life as a site of deep research to address scales of intimacy: where patterns hold and break as group sizes expand. She began her work with a focus on the individual, has recently concluded a study of pairs, and will continue to scale up gradually until she’s working at the scale of the metropolis. She is currently working on Obligation To Others Holds Me in My Place (2018 – 2022), an investigation of intimacy at the scale of immediate families. She is based between Brooklyn and St. Louis. 

Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research agency, based at  Goldsmiths, University of London, investigating human rights violations including violence committed by states, police forces, militaries, and corporations. FA works in partnership with institutions across civil society and findings from it’s investigations have been presented around the world in various forums, from courtrooms and parliamentary inquiries to cultural institutions and major media platforms. FA’s investigations employ pioneering techniques in spatial and architectural analysis, open-source investigation, digital modelling, and immersive technologies, as well as documentary research, situated interviews, and academic collaboration. 

Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide is exhibitions curator at Van Abbemuseum, the Netherlands. Previously she was deputy director at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons. Her interests lie in intersecting perspectives and modes that decentre the oppressor in practices of freedom and liberation, to influence art institutional practices. 

Vappu Jalonen is a Helsinki-based artist and writer whose work often deals with power relations and knowledge production by focusing on bodies and everyday objects, situations and words. Elis Hannikainen is an artist based in Helsinki and Berlin who works with text-driven media art and installations. In their work Hannikainen has recently dealt with bodily experience, possibilities of participation and means of support. The common projects of Vappu Jalonen and Elis Hannikainen include Distress Run, which is based on the artists’ experiences of endurance sports. Distress Run centres on moving bodies that are exposed to norms, able to feel enjoyment, depressed and in need of support.

Flo Kasearu is an artist who works directly with various social processes, using her characteristic irony. Flo has focused on various topical questions, such as freedom, public and private space, the economic crisis and the role and opportunities of women in society. She often turns to her own life and the lives of those closest to her for inspiration. Kasearu is the founder of the Flo Kasearu House Museum in Tallinn. Her latest exhibitions include Performing the Fringe (Konsthall C, Stockholm, 2020), Wunderkammer (Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga, 2020), State of Emergency (KUMU Art Museum,Tallinn, 2020).

Alen Ksoll is an art educator and curator based in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the co-founder of School in Common—a self-organised school for learning, studying and being in common. His areas of research include queer pedagogies, new materialism, political ecologies and collective practices. 

Mari Keski-Korsu is a post-disciplinary artist who explores macro-level manifestations of the eco-side. Her practice is focused on inter-species communication and complexities of care to possibly enable empathy towards whole ecosystems. She is a doctoral candidate to study for a Doctor of Arts degree in the research field of Contemporary Art in Aalto University. Her research focuses on emphatic interspecies rituals in change.

Kristina Norman is a Tallinn-based artist and documentary filmmaker whose interdisciplinary research-focused practice includes video installations, sculptural objects, urban interventions, as well as documentary films and performances. Norman’s latest work, poetic-documentary performance Lighter Than Woman (2019) has been shown at various performing arts festivals and theatre venues in Europe. Her earlier artwork has been shown at Manifesta Biennial (2014), Aichi Triennial (2013), Berlin Biennial (2008) among other art festivals. Her project After-War with which she represented Estonia at Venice biennial in 2009 belongs in the collection of Kiasma Museum.

Yates Norton is a curator at the Roberts Institute of Art, London. Previously, he was curator at Rupert, Vilnius, latterly directing its 2020 public programmes on Care and Interdependence and co-developing the programme for the Creative Europe funded consortium, ‘Who Cares?’.  With David Ruebain he has presented on their disability justice work in arts and educational settings. He performs and collaborates with artists, including singing in Lina Lapelytė, Vaiva Grainytė and Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s Sun and Sea (Marina). 

Natasa Petresin-Bachelez & Elena Sorokina  / Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care. Born during the first Covid-19 lockdown in France, the Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care brings together curatorial, artistic, and health research and practice that enact solidarity and care. For us, care is explicitly tied to solidarity and framed as intersection of social, anti-racist and ecological movements which articulate their positions as protectors rather than protesters, emphasising the importance of caring for and being good stewards of societies as ecosystems. 

Nat Raha is a poet and queer/trans activist-scholar, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is the author of three collections of poetry including of sirens, body & faultlines (Boiler House Press, 2018), countersonnets (Contraband Books, 2013) and Octet (Veer Books, 2010). Her creative and critical writing has appeared in South Atlantic Quarterly, MAP Magazine, The New Feminist Literary Studies (Cambridge UP, 2020), and Transgender Marxism (Pluto Press, 2021). Nat co-edited ‘Imagining Queer Europe Then and Now’, a special issue of Third Text journal (January 2021), and is co-curator of ‘Life Support: Forms of Care in Art and Activism’ Exhibition at Glasgow Women’s Library (Aug-Oct 2021). She co-edits Radical Transfeminism Zine.

Sepideh Rahaa is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher and educator based in Helsinki and Vantaa. Through her practice, she actively investigates/questions prevailing power structures, social norms and conventions while focusing on womanhood, storytelling and everyday resistances. Currently she is pursuing her doctoral studies in Contemporary Art at Aalto University. Her research interests are representation in contemporary art, silenced histories, decolonisation, feminist politics and intersectionality and the global social justice.

Annika Rauhala is a media artist, whose art has always been both political and current. In her video work, “Jouha,” she addresses the militarisation of the riot police as part of a broader societal transformation in which these troops are shaped into a faceless, and inhumane part of the machinery of violence. In her pictorial expression, Rauhala reverses the roles and makes the extremely masculine subjects into objects of a sexual gaze.

Shubhangi Singh is a visual artist and a filmmaker whose practice responds to the contemporary politics and interconnectedness of production and reproduction of popular everyday material. Her work often draws upon existing knowledges to address movement, identity and queries related to the gendered body and its relationship with the public sphere.  She works across the media, ranging from text to moving images and site-specific installations. Singh is the co-founder of New City Limits, an initiative to facilitate creative viewing and practice in Navi Mumbai, India and currently lives and works in Helsinki. 

Hito Steyerl is a filmmaker, visual artist, writer, and innovator of the essay documentary. Her prolific filmmaking and writing occupies a highly discursive position between the fields of art, philosophy and politics, constituting a deep exploration of late capitalism’s social, cultural and financial imaginaries. Recent exhibitions solo include: K21, Düsseldorf (2020), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, the Park Avenue Armory, New York, Serpentine Galleries, London (2019); Kunstmuseum, Basel, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2018); The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017). 

Rosario Talevi is a Berlin-based architect, curator, editor and educator interested in critical spatial practice, transformative pedagogies and feminist futures. She is co-director of the Floating University, research curator for Making Futures Bauhaus+ and a founding member of Soft Agency.  She currently holds the post of Professor of Social Design (2021-22) of the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. 

Eyal Weizman is the founding director of Forensic Architecture and Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. The author of over 15 books, he has held positions in many universities worldwide including Princeton, ETH Zurich and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He is a member of the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court and the Centre for Investigative Journalism. In 2019 he was elected life fellow of the British Academy and appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to architecture.

Eero Yli-Vakkuri is a recovering survivalist. In the past he made annoying street interventions which made people uncomfortable. Presently he is advancing sustainable design through campaigns, workshops and artistic presentations.

Karen Barad is Distinguished Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz. They held a tenured appointment in a physics department before moving into more interdisciplinary spaces. Barad is the author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Duke University Press, 2007) and numerous articles in the fields of physics, philosophy, science studies, materialisms, and feminist theory. 

Yvonne Billimore is an artist-curator working as associate curator of Rehearsing Hospitalities at Frame Contemporary Art Finland. Previously, she worked at Scottish Sculpture Workshop in rural Aberdeenshire, where she developed and produced a programme of international residencies and projects, alongside workshops and public events. Her work facilities situations for collective learning, exchange and experiences with particular attention given to feminist and ecological matters.

Ama Josephine Budge is a Speculative Writer, Artist, Curator and Pleasure Activist whose praxis navigates intimate explorations of race, art, ecology and feminism. As the recipient of the 2020 Local, International and Planetary Fictions Curatorial Research Fellowship with Frame Contemporary Art Finland (Helsinki) and EVA International (Limerick), Ama will be researching “Pleasurable Ecologies – Formations of Care: Curation as Future-building”.

Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide is exhibitions curator at Van Abbemuseum, the Netherlands. Previously she was deputy director at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons. Her interests lie in intersecting perspectives and modes that decentre the oppressor in practices of freedom and liberation, to influence art institutional practices. 

Aslak Holmberg has worked with Sámi and indigenous issues through NGOs, politics, activism and academia for the past decade. For the past four years he has been a Vice President of the Saami Council, and is a former Member of the Sámi Parliament in Finland. He is also a fisher, teacher and works as a freelancer with, amongst other things, conservation issues, indigenous knowledge and indigenous peoples’ rights.

Milla Kallio/FEMMA Planning. At FEMMA Planning, we study places and their identities as well as experiences of the residents together with local actors. At the heart of our work is commitment to understanding different urban realities and experiences. The main aim of the agency is to bring other perspectives to the planning process than the purely technical; it’s not enough to know what the experts think, planners and policymakers need to also be aware of the lived experiences of city-dwellers. 

Jussi Koitela currently works as Head of Programme at Frame Contemporary Art Finland and as an independent curator. Lately his curatorial work has entangled art, embodied research methodologies, feminist philosophy of science and materiality in different exhibitionary forms and modes of knowledge production. His curatorial projects have been presented among others at Konsthall C, Treignac Projet, Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), De Appel Arts Centre, SixtyEight Art Institute, Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art and Kiasma Theatre. Koitela was a participant of De Appel Curatorial Programme in 2015/2016.

Christine Langinauer is a curator, writer and researcher. She is focused on situational knowledge, feminist and norm-critical and creative thinking, and has published several articles on contemporary art. Currently, she is working as exhibition curator at the Vantaa Art Museum Artsi. Previously, Langinauer worked at Culture for All, promoting accessibility and diversity in the arts.

Yates Norton is a curator at the Roberts Institute of Art, London. Previously, he was curator at Rupert, Vilnius, latterly directing its 2020 public programmes on Care and Interdependence and co-developing the programme for the Creative Europe funded consortium, ‘Who Cares?’.  With David Ruebain he has presented on their disability justice work in arts and educational settings. He performs and collaborates with artists, including singing in Lina Lapelytė, Vaiva Grainytė and Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s Sun and Sea (Marina). 

Natasa Petresin-Bachelez & Elena Sorokina/Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care. Born during the first Covid-19 lockdown in France, the Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care brings together curatorial, artistic, and health research and practice that enact solidarity and care. For us, care is explicitly tied to solidarity and framed as intersection of social, anti-racist and ecological movements which articulate their positions as protectors rather than protesters, emphasising the importance of caring for and being good stewards of societies as ecosystems. 

Nat Raha is a poet and queer/trans activist-scholar, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is the author of three collections of poetry including of sirens, body & faultlines (Boiler House Press, 2018), countersonnets (Contraband Books, 2013) and Octet (Veer Books, 2010). Her creative and critical writing has appeared in South Atlantic Quarterly, MAP Magazine, The New Feminist Literary Studies (Cambridge UP, 2020), and Transgender Marxism (Pluto Press, 2021). Nat co-edited ‘Imagining Queer Europe Then and Now’, a special issue of Third Text journal (January 2021), and is co-curator of ‘Life Support: Forms of Care in Art and Activism’ Exhibition at Glasgow Women’s Library (Aug-Oct 2021). She co-edits Radical Transfeminism Zine.  

Shubhangi Singh is a visual artist and a filmmaker whose practice responds to the contemporary politics and interconnectedness of production and reproduction of popular everyday material. Her work often draws upon existing knowledges to address movement, identity and queries related to the gendered body and its relationship with the public sphere.  She works across the media, ranging from text to moving images and site-specific installations. Singh is the co-founder of New City Limits, an initiative to facilitate creative viewing and practice in Navi Mumbai, India and currently lives and works in Helsinki. 

Elina Suoyrjö is a curator, writer and researcher. Her curatorial practice builds upon working collaboratively and often situation-specifically with artists through an intersectional feminist lens. Her recent projects have been circling around the topics of ecofeminisms, hydrofeminisms, and the creation of transformative energies. She currently works as the Director of Programs at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York. 

Rosario Talevi is a Berlin-based architect, curator, editor and educator interested in critical spatial practice, transformative pedagogies and feminist futures. She is co-director of the Floating University, research curator for Making Futures Bauhaus+ and a founding member of Soft Agency.  She currently holds the post of Professor of Social Design (2021-22) of the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. 

Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen is a State Prize awarded multidisciplinary artist whose short film “Reflector of Living Will” won the Best Screenplay at Pisa Robotic Film Festival in 2018. Her work deals with disability politics, aesthetics of assistive devices and gender issues related to women with disabilities. She has facilitated social art workshops in Finland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia and China and participated in exhibitions in Finland and abroad. She is the recipient of a three year grant from Arts Promotion Center Finland for her project Empathy Objects 2019-2021.

Eero Yli-Vakkuri is a recovering survivalist. In the past he made annoying street interventions which made people uncomfortable. Presently he is advancing sustainable design through campaigns, workshops and artistic presentations.

Museum of Finnish Architecture is a national special museum. The museum maintains a collection of Finnish architecture and serves as a source of expert knowledge for everyone interested in architecture and the built environment.

The Finnish Cultural Institute in New York is a not-for-profit organisation that works across the fields of contemporary art, design and architecture, creating dialogue between Finnish and American professionals and audiences. The institute, founded in 1990, has grown from a residency program to commissioning large-scale projects and events that foster critical dialogue and work to build support for art professionals.

IHME Helsinki is a contemporary art organization that situations its activities in a dialogue between art and science. IHME’s core activity is the annual staging of a new artwork, together with an artist and Finnish and foreign partners, in public space in Finland and abroad. 

Vantaa Art Museum Artsi is a museum of contemporary art located in the Myyrmäki area in Vantaa. Artsi also takes care of the city’s public art collection and new art acquisitions. Much of the collection is on display in public facilities such as offices, libraries, schools, hospitals,