Middle Eastern art in the spotlight as Helsinki’s Kiasma museum reopens
Two years after being forced to close owing to pandemic restrictions in Finland, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki has reopened with an overhauled interior and an exhibition that is spread across the building’s five floors.
ARS22 – Living Encounters, which runs until October 16, features cutting-edge visual art, performances and films from around the world.
It is the 14th series of major exhibitions that present the latest from the contemporary art world. The ARS exhibitions began in 1961 in the Ateneum museum in Helsinki. ARS22 is the 10th exhibition in the series to be held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.
It includes 15 artworks commissioned specifically for ARS22, as well as works by 55 artists from 26 countries, including the UAE and Iraq. The works reflect on the exhibition’s themes of co-existence and our relationship to the planet.
“The concept behind ARS22 was to build an entity where multiple voices would co-exist together. To create a museum as a platform for encounters, we curated an exhibition where many narratives, instead of one linear storyline, would exist,” said Piia Oksanen, one of the show’s curators.
The exhibition has a space dedicated to art from the Middle East. According to Oksanen, “there is growing interest in artists from the Arab world.”
Emirati visual artist Farah Al Qasimi, Iraqi textile artist Kholod Hawash,
Emirati visual artist Farah Al Qasimi and Iraqi textile artist Kholod Hawash are exhibiting their works
Iraqi-American multidisciplinary artist Michael Rakowitz and art collective Slavs and Tatars are some of the Middle Eastern talents participating.
Al Qasimi’s work features images of butterflies perched on an orange slice, a hospitalised falcon and a woman watching anime on her iPhone. The images reflect on the concept of paradise in contemporary culture, in religion, desire and the entertainment industry.
Hawash, meanwhile, is presenting vibrant patchwork quilts that depict humanitarian issues including the refugee crisis and social justice.
Mother Tongues and Father Throats is a five-metre-tall carpet that depicts an illustration of an open mouth showing where certain letters of the Arabic alphabet are voiced from. The carpet was created by Slavs and Tatars and hangs by another work from the collective, titled PrayWay.
The installation merges the form of the rahle reading stand and the takht, a carpeted sitting arrangement found in traditional teahouses. The work also alludes to the magic carpets found in Middle Eastern tales such as Aladdin.
“Works featured in ARS22 explore the everyday lives and dreams of individuals and communities,” the museum’s website reads. “They raise questions about our relationship with the world, with nature and history, spirituality and technology.
“The exhibition offers places for encounters and interaction. It also reminds us that individuality is ultimately always founded on the common conditions of life. The stories told by the artworks are entertaining while creating their own realities. They offer us an opportunity to think and see differently but also point out a way forward.”