Sites of Care and Control: A year of artistic practice examining institutional architectures and multispecies cohabitation

Hakemuksen tiivistelmä

I am an artist working across photography, performance, and writing to examine how large-scale sociopolitical processes influence relationships of (non-)human beings with each other and their environments. In 2026, I will be working on three projects: Suspension in Other Terms is a photographic investigation of the institutional architectures that shape local refugee experiences. With a focus on a reception center in Salo and recollection of my personal experiences of such institutions in Finland, I am developing an extensive photographic series that examines the infrastructures that displaced people interact with on a near-daily basis. This project will receive a solo exhibition at the Salon Seurakunta Galleria in February 2026. A Performance for Two (working title) comprises four performances examining the limits of agency that immigrant and refugee subjects possess within Western cultural discourse, and in cultural institutions in particular. It traces artists' moral obligations to their countries of origin when these are under attack, and seeks to discover the most suitable approach to speaking in public in such a heavy context. This work will be shown during Generation 2026 at Amos Rex Museum (May-September 2026). Bark! is a year-long project I will develop in collaboration with artist and researcher Kush Badhwar, dog behaviorist Maria Batchenko, and my dog Los'. Together, we explore the entangled lives of humans and non-humans, particularly dogs, by approaching companionship, training, and interspecies communication as sites of artistic and social inquiry. Through our collaborative working process, we question inherited hierarchies between the species and imagine new forms of cohabitation and care. Seasonal publications, pop-up exhibitions, and open-to-all public programs will be produced, culminating in the final exhibition of the project at Gallery Augusta of HIAP in November 2026.