Gustafsson&Haapoja: Museum of Becoming

Gustafsson&Haapoja: Museum of Nonhumanity, 2016 (exhibition view) / Photo: Terike Haapoja

Gustafsson&Haapoja is a joint project by the visual artist Terike Haapoja and the writer and playwright Laura Gustafsson. The artist duo’s collaboration begun in 2012 examines history and society from a non-anthropocentric viewpoint. In their working process Gustafsson&Haapoja have, for instance, deconstructed the concepts of human and animal, and their links to racialization, sexism and other mechanisms of social exclusion.

Museum of Becoming is a set of three works that show new ways of thinking about the human being. The works consider the relationship between human beings and their own community, their environment and other species.

The Museum of Nonhumanity (2016) installation is an imaginary museum of the history of the distinction between human and animal. Remnants (2020) shows the human figure as fragile and indefinable in a landscape dominated by powers greater than those of humankind. The artworks and objects in Remnants have been selected for this exhibition from the HAM and Helsinki City Museum collections. The interviews in the videowork Becoming (2020) show the multiplicity of being in “buds” that are still growing, and which must be cherished and nurtured.

The exhibition is part of the programme of contemporary art event Helsinki Biennial, which will be held in the unique surroundings of Vallisaari Island 12.6.–26.9.2021.

Helsinki Biennial

Museum of Nonhumanity

Museum of Nonhumanity demonstrates how drawing a line between the human and non-human has enabled the widespread exploitation of other species, natural resources, and some human groups. Throughout the ages, a denial of humanity bound up with skin colour, ethnic background, gender and social status has enabled extreme forms of oppression, ranging from the slave trade to genocide.

Museum of Nonhumanity is a utopian institution looking back at the Western notion of the human – that is, a morally and juridically relevant being, and its negative, the nonhuman. The Museum proposes a reality in which it is no longer possible to diminish the other’s value by defining them as nonhuman. Museum of Nonhumanity is a memorial museum for all the victims of the human-animal divide.

Museum of Nonhumanity won the 2016 Finnish State Prize for Media Art.

music: Oliver Messiaen
technician: Pietu Pietiäinen
loans of objects: Finnish Museum of Natural History
teaching materials: nynnyt (Orlan Ohtonen & Selina Väliheikki)

museumofnonhumanity.org

Remnants

Jan Olof Mallander: Vision, 1974 / Photo: HAM / Maija Toivanen

For Remnants Gustafsson&Haapoja have selected artworks and other objects from the HAM and Helsinki City Museum collections. Their choices show the human figure as fragile and indefinable in a landscape dominated by the powers of history, nature and time, which are greater than the human.

Remnants comprises 55 artworks by a total of 33 artists, plus two archaeological finds.

Becoming

Becoming invites us to create alternatives to the patriarchal, heterosexist, Eurocentric, white tradition of thinking and its image of humanity. It is based on interviews that ponder what nascent forms of humanity and being should be nurtured so they can grow and create a just, sustainable future.

The interviewees are activists, thinkers, artists, carers and children, whose lives or work touch on something that is in bud. They are trying to build a more equal, more diverse society. The questions taken up by the interviewees prompt us to think in practice about how we are to live and act amid unavoidable changes.

Music: Mercedes Bentso, Hilja Grönfors, Anna Morottaja, Tommi Mäki Sound design: Pinja Mustajoki Sound recording: Satu Kankkonen, Mikko Virmajoki, Maura Korhonen, Kira DeCoudres
Co-production: Fantomatico
Exercises: nynnyt (Orlan Ohtonen & Selina Väliheikki) This production has been supported by AVEK Mediarata funding.

Interviewees: Elisa Aaltola, Maryan Abdulkarim, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Jaana Airaksinen, Eeti Berg, Ulla Drake, Willa France, Pauliina Feodoroff, Elaine Gan, Hilja Grönfors, Satu Herrala, Maru Hietala, Koko Hubara, Aune Kallinen, Maija Karhunen, Waqia Kareem, Annu Kemppainen, Mai Kivelä. Saila Kivelä, Sonya Lindfors, Eveliina Lundqvist, Louna Lundqvist, Ajak Majok, Anna Morottaja, Pia Puu Oksanen, Milla Pylkkänen, Malla Raevuori, Camilla Rantanen, Linda-Maria Roine, Silva Seppälä, Radhika Submramaniam, Caroline Suinner, Saara Särmä, Meriam Trabelsi, Asiya Wadud, Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen, Ruby van der Wekken.

Follow a Path into the Themes of Becoming

The exercises alongside the path are designed with children and their adults in mind, but they are free for anyone to do them.
Themes

Laura Gustafsson & Terike Haapoja

Laura Gustafsson (b. 1983) is an author, scriptwriter, and playwright based in Helsinki, who apart from literature has written theatre plays, radio plays and television series. Gustafsson has published the novels Huorasatu (Whorestory, 2011), Anomalia (Anomaly, 2013), Korpisoturi (Wilderness Warrior, 2016) and Pohja (Ground, 2017).

Terike Haapoja (b. 1974) is a visual artist based in New York, who alongside making exhibitions is also a writer and lecturer. Her works Closed Circuit – Open Duration and Toisten puolue (The Party of Others) were shown in the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013.