Maintaining the Museum of Impossible Forms culture centre.

The Museum of Impossible Forms was established in 2016 as a collective of individuals that envisioned a space within one of the most culturally and socially marginalised locations of Helsinki. With the initial two year grant from the Kone foundation, the Museum of Impossible Forms culture centre opened in the spring of 2017 at the Kontula shopping mall, in East Helsinki. After the initial grant made it possible to establish the space, the project was then granted an additional two year Kone grant in 2018. During these years the space has successfully transitioned from a collective of practitioners into a critical institutional model. More importantly, more members have joined and audience amounts have grown, making the Museum of Impossible Forms vital at creating and sustaining multiple ongoing and overlapping communities within its space. In fact, most of our challenges have to do with keeping up with the demand and interest for attending and using the space for events, as opposed to what we can offer time and resource wise. The impact that Museum of Impossible Forms has had in its relatively short time of existence has been, to simply put, profound. It has led the way in how we may reconsider the concept of an institution, it has brought together communities and created dialogues rare to be seen within the context of contemporary art. It has been a platform for launching projects that have grown to be significant in their own right, such as the Ubuntu Film Club and Drifts Festival. Furthermore, countless artists, collaborators, visitors and passers-by, many representing POC and other marginalised groups, have found the space unique and invaluable in the way it has been able to build an inclusive, inviting and supporting place to be. MIF has proven itself to be in the visionary frontlines on what art today is and can strive to be. The Museum of Impossible Forms was granted the State Art Price in multidisciplinary art in 2020. It currently acts as a curative collaborator in the Helsinki Biennial 2023.’
MIF program has been managed by artistic director Giovanna Esposito Yussif since April 2020, while the overall operations have been overseen by the association board. Between April 2021 and December 2022, MIF developed 100 public multidisciplinary events, engaged with 109 local and international artists, curated three exhibitions, and was part of 24 institutional collaborations from the local, Nordic, and Baltic regions. The programme has extensively attracted diverse and new audiences and engagements from Finland and abroad, demonstrating MIF´s ability to create meaningful programmes and exhibitions that resonate with art experts, as well as local audiences.