TerikeH – Page 2 – Terike Haapoja

Article in: Animals as Experiencing Entities – Theories and Historical NarrativesMarch 19, 2024
Terike Haapoja: Introduction to History According to Cattle, in Animals as Experiencing Entities, Theories and Historical Narratives (Springer)
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Waiting Room in Montoro12 gallery, BrusselsSeptember 19, 2023
Gustafsson&Haapoja’s 2019 sound installation Waiting Room is on view at Montoro12 gallery, Brussels.
Gustafsson&Haapoja in How to Look at Natures? Art and the Capitalocene. CroatiaJune 19, 2023
Gustafsson&Haapoja’s Embrace Your Empathy (2016) is part of the exhibition at Prsten Gallery, Zagreb
Inhale-Exhale in: Periferia, permanent exhibition at Hyytiälä Forest StationJune 19, 2023
The sculptural installation Inhale–Exhale is now part of the permanent environmental exhibition Periferia in Hyytiälä, Finland.
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Untitled (Alive) in the exhibition Little John, Pragovka Gallery, PragueApril 19, 2023
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Untitled (Alive) is part of the exhibition Little John, Pragovka Gallery, Prague 14.4. – 296. 2023.
Article in Radical History Review 1/2023January 19, 2023
Terike Haapoja: Museum of Nonhumanity, an article on animalisation and the climate crises, in Radical History Review (Duke)
Symposium at Reykjavik Art Museum “Visitations: Art, Agency and Belonging”October 19, 2022
This symposium, hosted by Reykjavík Art Museum, will be a closing event for Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson’s award-winning project, Visitations: Polar Bears Out of Place (2019-22). As special guests of the artists, and contributors to the new Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson monograph, Debatable Lands, artists Mark Dion (US) and Terike Haapoja (US/Finland) will discuss their own work.
Beijing Art and Technology Biennale BATB: ‘Synthetic Ecology’September 16, 2022
The inaugural Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) will be held at 798CUBE from September 22. 2022 to January 31. 2023. With its theme Synthetic Ecology, this inaugural edition will include works by Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr, Patricia Piccinini, Ralf Baecker, Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits, Rimini Protokoll, Špela Petrič, Susan Schuppli, Suzanne Anker, Terike Haapoja, Ursula Biemann and others.
Lecture, Studia Generalia, Uniarts Helsinki, 14.9.2022September 15, 2022
‘And I Trust You’ Exhibition at Miettinen Collection, BerlinSeptember 15, 2022
“And I Trust You” curated by Anna Miettinen and Linda Peitz Works from the Miettinen Collection & Sammlung Peters-Messer includes works from the 2017 series Gravitation.
Conversation with Snæbjörnsdóttir/WilsonMay 25, 2022
Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson’s new monograph Debatable Lands includes a conversation between Haapoja and Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson. The book is published in accordance with their exhibition Visitations at Akureyri Art Museum, Akureyri, Iceland. Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson were awarded with the Icelandic Artists of the Year Award in 2022.
Essay in Differens MagazineMay 25, 2022
Differens Magazine’s issue Inside Animals / Animals Inside includes the essay Beyond Animality by Terike Haapoja, on Gustafsson&Haapoja’s 2016 project Museum of Nonhumanity.
Lecture, University of Oregon, May 2May 1, 2022
A lecture ‘Museums and Other Institutions in a Multispecies World’ in the University of Oregon online lecture series.
Terike Haapoja awarded 2022 Guggenheim FellowshipApril 25, 2022
Terike Haapoja is among the recipients of the 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship, awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Museum of the History of Cattle at MAAT, LisbonApril 15, 2022
Visual Natures – The Politics and Culture of Environmentalism in the 20th and 21st Centuries, open at MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, 30.3. – 5.9. 2022
Entropy in Earthly Observatory, Chicago Art InstituteOctober 29, 2021
Entropy (2004) is on view at the exhibition Earthly Observatory at SAIC, curated by Andrew Yang and Giovanni Aloi. 8/30 – 12/13.2021.
Muse in Intensive Places exhibition, Fotokuu TallinnSeptember 29, 2021
Muse (2020) in Intensive Places exhibition, as part of Tallin Photography Festival, Tallinn, 14.9. – 17.10. 2021. Curated by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits.
From Seeing to Acting in AmsterdamSeptember 29, 2021
Entropy (2004) on view as part of From Seeing to Acting, at Looiersgracht 60. Curated by Radical Reversibility.
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Becoming in Fotograf Festival, PragueSeptember 29, 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja’s 3-hour video installation Becoming is part of Fotograf Festival “Earthling”, Prague 2.9. – 17.10.2021. Curated by Lukáš Likavčan.
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Becoming in New Tretyakov Gallery, MoscowSeptember 29, 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja are presenting two large projects: Becoming (2020) and Embrace Your Empathy (2016) at the Living Matters exhibition, September 2 — October 10, 2021 The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Becoming in Droog Gallery, AmsterdamSeptember 29, 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja’s Becoming (2020) is on view at Droog Gallery, Amsterdam, as part of the exhibition The World as We Don’t Know It, 23 September 2021 – 12 January 2022. Curated by Curated by Renny Ramakers.
On Belonging – new work in Resonant Bodies exhibition at Kindl, BerlinMay 22, 2021
New work On Belonging on view at Kindl, Berlin, as part of the exhibition Resonant Bodies, 23.5 – 20.6. 2021.
The Museum of the History of Cattle in Kalmar Art Museum, SwedenFebruary 9, 2021
The Museum of the History of Cattle, Gustafsson&Haapoja’s first collaboration that was launched in 2013, will be on view ar Kalmar konstmuseum 6.2. – 9.5. 2021. Curated by Sara Hemmingson.
Gustafsson&Haapoja, solo show in KyotoFebruary 9, 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja’s newest project, the video installation Becoming, is on view at a solo show in Kyoto University of Arts Gallery 29.1. – 15.5. 2021.
Artist monograph: Terike Haapoja: Vulnerability, Community, AnimalityFebruary 2, 2021
Terike Haapoja – Vulnerability, Community, Animality is the first major monograph of Haapoja’s work, presenting works and collaborative projects from 2004 to 2020. Available from Garret Publications.
Solo exhibition – Gallery Forum Box HelsinkiFebruary 1, 2021
Muse – Dialogues on Love and Art presents new video work and documented conversations. Gallery Forum Box, Helsinki, 9.11. – 6.12. 2020
A new publication Bud Book – Manual for Earthly Living by Gustafsson&HaapojaJanuary 1, 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja’s solo exhibition Museum of Becoming at Helsinki Art Museum HAM is accompanied by a new publication: Bud Book – Manual for Earthly Living (Garret, 2020).
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Museum of Becoming, a solo show in Helsinki Art MuseumJuly 19, 2020
Gustafsson&Haapoja’s museum exhibition at Helsinki Art Museum HAM is open 1.6. 2020 through January 9. 2021. The exhibition includes Museum of Becoming, and intervention to Helsinki Art Museums collection, and a new commissioned installation Becoming.
New essay: The Lover, the Muse, the Reader – On Thinking TogetherSeptember 14, 2019
New essay: The Lover, the Muse, the Reader – On Thinking Together on thisisnotablog.co.
Waiting Room, a new project by Gustafsson&HaapojaSeptember 14, 2019
Waiting Room, a new project by Gustafsson&Haapoja, at Zone2Source Amsterdam until November 10th.
Museum of Nonhumanity at SixtyEight Art Institute, CopenhagenAugust 12, 2019
Sixty-Eight Art Institute, Copenhagen 23.8.2019 – 30.9. 2019
Gustafsson&Haapoja at Wäinö Aaltosen museoAugust 12, 2019
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Embrace Your Empathy 15.8. – 15.9. 2019 Wäinö Aaltosen museo, Turku
Essay – Three Modalities of FuturelessnessJune 12, 2019
A new essay Three Modalities of Futurelessness by Terike Haapoja is published on thisisnotablog.co.
Eco-Visionaries, Matadero, MadridJune 12, 2019
Eco-Visionaries – Art for a Planet in a State of Emergency June 13–October 6, 2019, Opening: June 13, 7:30–9:30pm, Matadero Madrid
Coexistence exhibition, Kiasma, HelsinkiApril 25, 2019
Coexistence – Human, Animal and Nature in Kiasma’s Collections is Kiasma’s 2019 collection exhibition exploring the possibility of sustainable coexistence between humans, other species, and the environment.
Documentation – lecture at the School of the Art Institute of ChicagoMarch 22, 2019
The New School, April – GIDEST seminar with Terike HaapojaMarch 17, 2019
In her GIDEST seminar, through a presentation of her installation work as well as other projects, Haapoja will discuss how attempts to include nonhuman beings in social structures challenge underlying notions of humanity and personhood.
Lecture at the School of the Art Institute of ChicagoMarch 16, 2019
Terike Haapoja: Between Thingness and Being Lecture Monday, March 18, 4:00 p.m. The LeRoy Neiman Center 37 S. Wabash Ave., first floor, Chicago, IL http://www.saic.edu/events/terike-haapoja
Video preview of Museum of Nonhumanity@Taipei BiennialFebruary 13, 2019
Panel, New York 21.Feb: How to Live: EARTHFebruary 3, 2019
How to Live: EARTH Panel, The 8th Floor, New York Featuring: Matthew Friday of SPURSE, Panelist Terike Haapoja, Panelist Eve Andrée Laramée, Panelist Linda Weintraub, Panelist Lenore Malen, Moderator
Roundtable, NYU 14. Feb: Ecology as INTRAsectionalityFebruary 2, 2019
A Roundtable discussion with artists Elaine Gan, Terike Haapoja, Sarah Kanouse, MTL / Amin Husain & Nitasha Dhillon, Not an Alternative, Aviva Rahmani + organizers Tj Demos and Emily Eliza Scott. Free entry.
Earth Rights exhibition in Kunsthalle TurkuFebruary 1, 2019
EARTH RIGHTS, Kunsthalle Turku 2.–24.2.2019. Opening hours: Wed-Sun 12-18. Kunsthalle Turku, Vanha Suurtori 5, 20500 Turku.
Museum of Nonhumanity in Taipei Biennale 11.17.2018 – 10.3.2019September 19, 2018
Taipei Biennale Post Nature 11..17.2018 – 10.3. 2019. Curators Mali Wu, Francesco Manacorda
Eco-Visionaries, BaselSeptember 19, 2018
Eco-Visionaries – New Media and Ecology After the Anthropocene House of Electronic Arts, Basel 30.08.2018 – 11.11.2018
Works from Miettinen Collection in Salon Dalhman, BerlinSeptember 19, 2018
Salon Dalhman,Berlin You Are Just a Piece Of Action Portraits from the Miettinen Collection 14. 07. – 01. 09. 2018
Video work by Gustafsson&Haapoja at Index, StockholmSeptember 19, 2018
And Tomorrow And Index,Stockholm curated by Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris 25 August–25 November 2018
Gustafsson&Haapoja at The Shores of The World, PragueJuly 7, 2018
Gustafsson&Haapoja are showing Embrace Your Empathy at an exhibition The Shores of the World in Prague, through August 17.
Opening Keynote in InSEA Congress, Helsinki 18.6.June 10, 2018
Terike Haapoja will give the opening keynote lecture in InSEA 2018 congress, Aalto University, Helsinki, on June 18 2018.
Museum of Nonhumanity in Turner Contemporary, UKJune 10, 2018
The archive of Gustafsson&Haapoja’s Museum of Nonhumanity is on view at Animals and Us, an exhibition at Turner Contemporary, UK.
Symposium Beyond Binaries at ISCP New YorkMarch 9, 2018
The symposium Beyond Binaries: Towards New Constructs of Personhood and Gender approaches the challenge of deconstructing two central binaries of Western culture: binary gender and the human-animal divide.
Gravitation and Studies on Freedom at ANTI FestivalSeptember 18, 2017
Terike Haapoja was the recipient of ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art in 2016. As part of the award, Haapoja will return to the festival with three new projects.
GRAVITATION – exhibition, Salon Dahlman, BerlinSeptember 7, 2017
Terike Haapoja: GRAVITATION
Exhibition and book preview
Salon Dalhman, Berlin 11.9. – 23.12. 2017
Hyperallergic on Museum of NonhumanityAugust 10, 2017
Hyperallergic’s Alina Cohen on Museum of Nonhumanity at Moss, Norway.
Museum of Nonhumanity in Santarcangelo Festival, ItalyMay 30, 2017
Museum of Nonhumanity, History of Other’s (Haapoja & Gustafsson) large scale exhibition and participatory project will be part of Santarcangelo Festival, Italy, 16.6. – 10. 2017. The utopian museum declares dehumanization to be past, while presenting the history of the distinction between humans and other animals, and the way that this […]
Museum of Nonhumanity in Momentum BiennaleMay 30, 2017
Museum of Nonhumanity, History of Other’s (Haapoja & Gustafsson) large scale exhibition and participatory project will be part of Momentum Biennale, Norway, 16.6. – 10. 2017. The utopian museum declares dehumanization to be past, while presenting the history of the distinction between humans and other animals, and the way that this […]
Solo exhibition – Chronus Art Center (CAC) ShanghaiMay 30, 2017
The exhibition Closed Circuit – Open Duration, last seen in the 55. Venice Biennale, will be on view in Chronus Art Center in Shanghai 3.6. – 3.9. 2017. The exhibition consists of 6 works that use new media to explore our relationship with nature, technology and mortality. The exhibition is curated […]
Talk at Creative Time Summit DC: Occupy the FutureDecember 20, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf1AfYzIVW0
Terike Haapoja and Laura Gustafsson awarded with Finnish State Media Art AwardDecember 19, 2016
History of Others, the collaboration between Terike Haapoja and writer Laura Gustafsson is awarded with Finnish State Media Art Award 2017. The annual State art awards are one of the most prestigious art awards in Finland. http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000004939961.html
Animal Mirror exhibition in ISCP, New YorkNovember 13, 2016
The Animal Mirror presents artworks that take non-human animals as their subject matter, reflecting a range of cultural and societal issues of the twenty-first century. The participating artists reveal the ever-shifting relationships between humankind and other species, extending the idea of non-human animals as creatures of mediation. The works offer insights […]
Terike Haapoja awarded with ANTI Prize for Live Art 2016November 13, 2016
The ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art was awarded for the first time in Kuopio during ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival 2014, on 24th September. In December 2014, ANTI announced the continuation of the Prize. The future of the Prize is secured with the Saastamoinen Foundation, which generously supports it […]
Museum of Nonhumanity in One Quartz MagazineOctober 19, 2016
In her first article for One Quart Elspeth Mitchell reviews her experiences in the exhibition The Museum of Non-Humanity. She also discusses her impressions of the Finnish art scene in 2016 from her perspective as a researcher. Read the full article here: Notes on a Scene: The Museum of Nonhumanity
Presentation in Creative Time Summit DCOctober 14, 2016
Creative Time Summit DC: Occupy the Future The Creative Time Summit of 2016 will focus on democracy and it’s expansions. The world’s largest annual conference on art and social justice will take place in the historic Lincoln Theatre in Washington DC on 14-16 October, and give the stage to artists, […]
TJ Demos on the work of Terike Haapoja and History of OthersOctober 13, 2016
A new essay by TJ Demos on rights on nature and the work of Terike Haapoja and History of Others. The essay will be published in the upcoming monography on Terike Haapoja’s work. Please see also TJ Demo’s new book Decolonizing Nature (Sterberg Press, 2016). TJ:Demos: Animal Cosmopolitics: The Art […]
Museum of Nonhumanity, new project by History of OthersSeptember 13, 2016
Museum of Nonhumanity declares dehumanization to be history? A new project by History of Others Project launch: Suvilahti, Tiivistämö, Helsinki 1.9.2016, open through September and available for touring Project website: museumofnonhumanity.org A new temporary museum by History of Others opens in Helsinki in September. The museum presents the history of the […]
Embrace your Empathy at FLOWAugust 13, 2016
Gustafsson&Haapoja is FLOW Festival’s visual artist of the year 2016 See full program: FLOW festival New series of work under the title Embrace Your Empathy! is be a prelude to Gustafsson&Haapoja’s new project Museum of Nonhumanity. The museum focuses on the history of dehumanization and will open in the Suvilahti area’s – where Flow […]
Terike Haapoja shortlisted for ANTI Prize for Live ArtAugust 13, 2016
ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art will be awarded again in Kuopio in October. Four outstanding contemporary artists or collectives are competing for the world’s only Prize for Live Art; the nominees are Action Hero (UK), Terike Haapoja (FI), My Barbarian (US) and Public Movement (IL). The winner will be chosen by a jury consisting of international art […]
History of Others at FLOW festivalAugust 13, 2016
HISTORY OF OTHERS IS FLOW FESTIVAL’S VISUAL ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2016 See full program: FLOW festival New series of work under the title Embrace Your Empathy! will be a prelude to History of Other’s new project Museum of Non-Humanity. The museum focuses on the history of dehumanization and will open in the […]
Museum of Nonhumanity opens 1.9.2016June 7, 2016
Museum of Nonhumanity Opening: Helsinki, Suvilahti, 1.9.2016 Project website: museumofnonhumanity.org A new project by History of Others will be launched 1.9. 2016 A new temporary museum is to open in Helsinki in September. The museum will present the history of the distinction between humans and other animals, and the […]
History of Others in Flow festival 2016April 4, 2016
History of Others is Flow Festival’s Visual artist of the year. New series of work under the title Embrace Your Empathy! will be a prelude to History of Other’s new project Museum of Non-Humanity. The museum focuses on dehumanisation, and will open in the Suvilahti area’s – where Flow is […]
Gegen Against exhibition in Salon DalhmanJanuary 13, 2016
A large scale installation The Foundation by Terike Haapoja is part of the Gegen Against exhibition in Salon Dalhman, Berlin, curated by General Minds, until 19.2.2016. The exhibition “Gegen against” employs art to discuss the relationship between the individual and the contemporary world politics. Individual values and practices are reflections […]
History of Others in ZKM, GermanyOctober 30, 2015
History of Others’ large scale project The Museum of the History of Cattle will be presented in the Exo-Evolution exhibition in ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany 31.10.2015 -28.2.2016. http://zkm.de/event/2015/10/globale-exo-evolution “The exhibition focuses on the artistic use of new technologies and opens up views into the future, in various modules. It shows us our […]
Publication launch in Venice BiennaleJuly 30, 2015
Altern Ecologies – Emergent Perspetives at the Ecological Threshold in the 55. Venice Biennale Edited by Taru Elfving and Terike Haapoja Book launch in Venice Biennale 10.8.2015 The state of emergency caused by the environmental crisis has drawn forth the necessity to re-evaluate the centres of gravity in our world, […]
Panels and presentations in the Venice BiennaleJuly 30, 2015
Terike Haapoja will be presenting in two events in Venice Biennale 2016: Who Needs Museums and Biennales? A panel discussion organised by G.U.L.F Panelists Andrew Ross, Okwui Enwezor, Terike Haapoja, Kaarin Taipale, Marco Baravalle August 9th 4-6om The nineteenth-century reasons for exhibiting art in public no longer apply. Paternalistic ideas about educating […]
Panels and presentations in the Venice BiennaleJuly 30, 2015
Terike Haapoja will be presenting in two events in Venice Biennale 2016: Who Needs Museums and Biennales? A panel discussion organised by G.U.L.F Panelists Andrew Ross, Okwui Enwezor, Terike Haapoja, Kaarin Taipale, Marco Baravalle August 9th 4-6om The nineteenth-century reasons for exhibiting art in public no longer apply. Paternalistic ideas about educating […]
Lecture in ZKM TribunaleJuly 6, 2015
A lecture by Terike Haapoja in ZKM Tribunal against the crimes of the 20th century. The lecture discusses non-human legal personhood, the history of other species and dehumanisation. 45min + discussion. Open the video from the link below: https://zkm.de/en/media/video/the-tribunal-terike-haapoja The conference paper is available in: http://www.terikehaapoja.net/the-history-of-othering/
New History of Others publication: The History According to CattleJuly 6, 2015
History According to Cattle Edited by: Laura Gustafsson, Terike Haapoja Publishers: Into Publishing, punctum books, History of Others The world history is written by winners: humans. Still, history includes a multiplicity of agents and processes: other animals, natural forces, microbes and cosmic events, whose perspectives have remained invisible to the […]
TJ Demos on History of OthersJune 21, 2015
The final piece of art historian and writer Tj Demos ‘s series of blog postings on the concept and reality of the Anthropocene. The series provides a refreshing, productively critical approach to the language around the concept of the Anthropocene, while analyzing major geo/polical issues and art. Warmly recommended. History of Others […]
Publication: Art and the AnthropoceneJune 21, 2015
History of Others is happy to be included in this wonderful and already acclaimed volume Art and the Anthropocene – Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies by Heather Davisand Etienne Turpin. Essays and articles by Ursula Biemann, Anselm Franke, Donna Haraway, Natasha Myers, Oliver Kellhammer, Rich Pell and many many others. You can order […]
Transmodern-Modern DictionaryDecember 2, 2014
Transmodern – Modern Dictionary ? series of workshops, book launch and exhibition in collaboration with curator Pablo Ramirez in progress Transmodern – Modern Dictionary is a wide scale art and research project that will be realized in collaboration with different indigenous communities around the world. Many traditional cultures that live […]
History of Non-Humanity (2015)December 1, 2014
The Museum of the History of Non-Humanity Upcoming in 2015/2016 The alarming effects of the environmental crises have brought nature, the long forgotten foundation of human culture and progress, to the center of attention in all fields of human activity, from science to economy to social issues to food production. […]
The Trial in “The Learned Pig” JournalNovember 29, 2014
An article by Tom Jeffreys in The Learned Pig on The Trial: http://www.thelearnedpig.org/oikeusjuttu-the-trial/1536
The Trial. New project by The History of OthersNovember 17, 2014
The Trial, a new project by The History of Others had it’s premiere on the 13th of November in Helsinki as part of Baltic Circle festival. read more
Solo exhibition in The Nordic House, Faroe IslandsJanuary 28, 2014
The 5-channel video installation Community will be on show in a solo exhibition in The Nordic House, Faroe Islands, 2.2. – 22.2. 2014 . More info www.nlh.fo
ISCP residencyJanuary 13, 2014
Terike Haapoja will be a resident in ISCP, Brooklyn, NYC, 1.1. – 30.6. 2013. http://www.iscp-nyc.org/
The History of Others awarded with Kiila-prizeDecember 31, 2013
The History of Others, a collaboration of Terike Haapoja with author, playwright Laura Gustafsson, has been awarded with the Kiila-prize of the year 2013. The prize is given by Kiila association board annually to an artist or a project with significant artistic or societal impact. The former prizes have been […]
Mustekala.info issue “After the Animal”December 31, 2013
Art and culture journal mustekala.info’s issue “After the Animal” is out. Editor Terike Haapoja. Contributions by Perttu Saksa, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Ilkka Hanski, Kukka Ranta, Richard Pell and Bryndis Snaebjörnsdottir&Mark Wilson&Ron Broglio. The issue examines the effects of the disappearance of species due to mass extinction and the collapsing of the […]
New project launch: The Museum of the History of CattleDecember 29, 2013
The Museum of the History of Cattle is the first part of a large scale art and research project The History of Others by terike Haapoja and Laura Gustafsson. The Museum of the History of Cattle opened its doors 30.11.2013 in Helsinki. More info: The Museum of the History […]
Calendar update – exhibitions, publications and projects 2013-2014October 30, 2013
UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS / 2013 “After the Animal”, Mustekala.info, issue 4/13, launched 15.12.2013 Terike Haapoja will be the editor of Mustekala.info issue 4/2013. The issue, titled “After the Animal” takes as its starting point the fact that the era of Anthropocene will be defined by the disappearance of animals due to […]
Venice Biennale reviews and press coverageOctober 30, 2013
Selected articles on Venice Biennale and Terike Haapoja’s exhibition in the Nordic Pavilion. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/review-55th-venice-biennale-giardini-venice-8636394.html http://thehousenews.com/art/??-???-????????/ http://www.vagant.no/en-sentimental-vetenskap/ http://www.kunstkritikk.com/kritikk/a-tree-that-hit-the-art/ http://www.artfagcity.com/2013/06/07/a-strange-spiritual-turn-at-the-55th-venice-biennale/ http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/charlottehigginsblog/2013/may/31/venice-biennale-diary-charlotte-higgins-deller http://flavorwire.com/397779/the-best-venice-biennale-2013-artwork-you-havent-heard-about/6 http://www.swide.com/art-culture/exhibition/venice-biennale-2013-artists-review-josef-koudelka-alfredo-jaar-ai-weiwei/2013/6/2 http://www.sydsvenskan.se/kultur–nojen/i-bildernas-flod/ http://www.derwesten.de/kultur/bei-der-kunst-biennale-in-venedig-regnet-es-stuehle-und-gold-id8033285.html http://www.kunstforum.as/2013/05/biennale-for-55-gang/ http://www.wanderurbanwilds.com/2013/05/20/new-models-for-environmental-artists-2/ http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/venice-biennale-the-nationals-nordic-pavilion/ http://www.wildculture.com/article/wild-culture-venice-biennale-2013/1196 http://www.nytid.fi/2013/06/bygga-bjork-tala-med-trad/ http://www.theglamattitude.com/spip.php?article2233 http://venicebiennale.australiacouncil.gov.au/a-postcard-from-the-venice-biennale/ http://museuminabottle.com/2013/09/02/looking-wonder-venice-biennale/#more-900
EARN SYmposium: “A Counter Order of Things” @ VeniceOctober 28, 2013
The symposium “A Counter Order of Things” investigates a variety of issues and questions that could lead to a topical and more dynamic profile of the concept of research and interaction between art, science, and activism connected to a being-in-the-world removed from the Linnaeus tree of taxonomical knowledge. Speakers include Gerald Raunig, TJ Demos, Anselm Franke, Bryndis […]
The Independent Review on Venice BiennaleJune 9, 2013
The Independent has listed Terike Haapoja´s exhibition in the Nordic Pavilion one of the biennale´s highlights. Read the review here
Venice BiennaleApril 19, 2013
Venice Biennale 1st June – 24th November 2013 Venice, Italy Terike Haapoja will be representing Finland in Venice Biennale 2013 together with artists Antti Laitinen. Haapoja’s exhbition will take over the Nordic Pavilion in the Giardini pavilion area. The exhibition is curated by Mika Elo, Marko Karo and Harri Laakso. […]
Journal: Esitys -lehti / Performance -journal issue 2/2013: AnimalApril 18, 2013
The second issue of 2013 of the finnish journal for contemporary performance Esitys-lehti available now. The issue focuses on the theme of the animal. Editors Terike Haapoja and Pilvi Porkola. The issue will look at how animals and animality as well as the political status of non-human animals are changing the […]
Video: Talk in IHME -päivät, HelsinkiApril 18, 2013
Watch Terike Haapoja’s talk on art, society and activism in IHME-päivät, Helsinki 2013 (in finnish)
CURRENT EXHIBITION: Checkpoint Leonardo, Jyväskylä art museumFebruary 27, 2013
Group exhibition in Jyväskylä art museum 15.3. – 28.4. 2013. Artists Terike Haapoja, Päivi Hintsanen and Jeanette Schäring. Lecture by Terike Haapoja on 22.3. See more info of Checkpoint Leonardo -exhibition.
CURRENT EXHIBITION: Two exhibitions in Sweden / spring 2013February 26, 2013
The Exhibition After the Arc: An Island Findings by Team B curated by Joanna Sandell will be on show in the Finnish institute in Stockholm from 13.3. on and in Botkyrka Kunsthall from 13.4. on. The exhibition includes works from finnish artists Terike Haapoja, Antti Laitinen, Salla Tykkä, Jani Ruscica and Sasha […]
Interview / Tulva 1/2013February 25, 2013
Interview of Terike Haapoja and Laura Gustafsson on the History of Others -project by Sanna Uuttu in feminist journal Tulva issue 1/2013.
Talk: Tieteen päivät panel discussionDecember 26, 2012
Terike Haapoja will be participating in Tieteen päivät panel discussion moderated by Kirsi Monni on sat 12.1.2013. Other participants include Essayist Antti Nylen, artist Tarja Pitkänen-Walter, director Kari Heiskanen and composer Olli Virtaperko. Helsinki University main building 12.1.2013 15:00 – 17:00
Interview: Yliopistolehti 14/2012December 20, 2012
Terike Haapoja’s interview in Yliopistolehti 14/2012. http://www.helsinki.fi/ajankohtaista/yliopistolehti/

UPCOMING

Feb 18, 2025
Talk: Animals, Biocapital and Left Politics
Art Laboratory Berlin

Feb 26, 2025
Keynote lecture: Ihmiskeskeisyyttä purkamassa
Puistokatu 4, Helsinki

April 15, 2025
Keynote, Münster Lectures
Kunstakademie Münster, Germany

April 29, 2025
Roundtable: What’s Left for the Animals
CUNY Graduate Center, New York

June 8, 2025
Exhibition: Working Animal’s Party
Kulttuurikeskus Stoa, Helsinki

PAST

Dec 12 2024
Online lecture
LuoTo-Hanke, Inspiraatiota kestävyystyöhön -luentosarja

Nov 5, 2024
Lecture: What’s Left for the Animals
Museum of Impossible Forms, Helsinki

Oct 9 2024
Lecture
What’s Left for the Animals
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Albany, NY

Sep 2023
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Waiting Room
Exhibition: Animal Power
Montoro12 Gallery, Brussels

Jun 2023
Inhale-Exhale
Permanent exhibition: Periferia
Hyytiälä Forest Station

April 2024
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Embrace Your Empathy
Exhibition: How to Look at Nature
Croatian Association of Visual Artists

April 13 – June 29
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Untitled (Alive)
Exhibition: Little John
Pragovka gallery, Prague

March 22. 2023
To Be Given Over
Performance: Multiplie Festival Trondheim
In collaboration with WAUHAUS

Oct 22, 2022
Symposium: Visitations: Art, Agency and Belonging
Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland

Sep 22, 2022 – Jan 31, 2023
Exhibition: Synthetic Ecology
BATB, Beijing Art and Technology Biennale, Beijing

14.9. 2022 Helsinki
LECTURE
Studia Generalia Lecture series

Sep 7-11. 2022
Venice Climate Camp
Art for Radical Ecologies workshop

Sep 10. 2022 – 14.1. 2023
Exhibition: And I Trust You
Miettinen Collection, Berlin

May 2. 2022
LECTURE
University of Oregon

March 30 – Sep 9. 2022
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Museum of the History of Cattle
Exhibition: Visual Natures
MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon

Oct 3 – Nov 30. 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Becoming
Bucharest Biennale

Sept 29. 2021 – Jan 8. 2022
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Siat – Pigs
SOLO EXHIBITION: Seinäjoki Kunsthalle

Sept 24. 2021 – Jan 9. 2022
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Becoming
Exhibition / The World as We Don’t Know It
Droog Gallery, Amsterdam

Sept 2 – Oct 17 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Becoming
SOLO EXHIBITION / Display Gallery
Fotograf Festival, Prague

Sept 2 – Oct 10 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja
Exhibition: Living Matter
The New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscov

Sept 16 – Oct 3. 2021
Exhibition: From Seeing to Acting

Sept 1 – Oct 17 2021
Exhibition: Intensive Places at Tallinn Photomonth

Aug 31 – Dec 3 2021
Exhibition: Earthly Observatory
SAIC gallery, Chicago

Jun 12 – Nov 28. 2021
Gustafsson&Haapoja
Exhibition: Science Friction – Living Amongst Companion Species
CCCB, Barcelona

Aug 20 – Sept 5. 2021
Exhibition: Aistit – Senses | Coming to Our Senses
Helsinki Kunsthalle
Aisit – Senses

May 22 – June 8. 2021
Exhibition: Aistit – Senses | Resonant Bodies
Kindl, Berlin
Aistit – Senses

May 22 – Aug 1. 2021
Exhibition: Aistit – Senses | When Our Eyes Touch
Maison Louis Carré, Paris
Aistit – Senses

Feb 6 – May 9. 2021
SOLO EXHIBITION / Gustafsson&Haapoja: The Museum of the History of Cattle
Kalmar konstmuseum

Jan 30 – Mar 21. 2021
SOLO EXHIBITION / Gustafsson&Haapoja: Becoming
Kyoto University Arts Gallery @KCUA

Nov 1. – Dec 6. 2020
SOLO EXHIBITION / Muse – Dialogues on Love and Art
Gallery Forum Box, Helsinki

June 2. 2020 – Jan 17. 2021
SOLO EXHIBITION / Gustafsson&Haapoja: Museum of Becoming
HAM Helsinki Art Museum / Helsinki Biennial

Oct 10-Dec 16. 2019
SOLO EXHIBITION / Between Thingness and Being
Gallery@calitz, UC San Diego

Oct 5 – Dec 5. 2019
EXHIBITION/ Research: Nature/Life
The European Center for Art Upper Bavaria
www.schafhof-kuenstlerhaus.de

Sept 8- Nov 15. 2019
SOLO EXHIBITION / Waiting Room / Gustafsson&Haapoja
Exhibition of a new commission by Zone2Source, Amsterdam
Gallery Zone2Source

Aug 25-Sept 30. 2019
EXHIBITION / The Archive of Nonhumanity / Gustafsson&Haapoja
Sixty-Eight Art InstituteCopenhagen, Denmark

Aug 15 -Sep 15. 2019
EXHIBITION / Embrace Your Empathy / Gustafsson&Haapoja
Wäinö Aaltosen Museo, Turku

June 15-2019
EXHIBITION
Eco-Visionaries, Matadero, Madrid

April 26. 2019 – March 1.2020
EXHIBITION
Coexistence
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki

Feb 5. 2019
TALK
GIDEST Seminar
The New School, New York

March 18. 2019
TALK
School of the Art Institute of Chicago SAIC

Feb 21. 2019
PANEL
How to Live: EARTH
The 8th Floor, New York
Organised by Leonore Malen

Feb 12. 2019
ROUNDTABLE
Ecology as Intrasectionality– Radicalising Arts of Climate Justice
NYU Barney Bld, Einstein Auditorium, New York 7pm

Feb 2-24. 2019
EXHIBITION
Earth Rights
Kunsthalle Turku

Nov 17. 2018 – March 10. 2019
EXHIBITION / Museum of Nonhumanity / Gustafsson&Haapoja
Taipei Biennale
Museum of Nonhumanity

Oct 24. 2018
TALK
Kenyon College, Ohio

Aug 30 – Nov 11. 2018
EXHIBITION
Eco-Visionaries – New Media and Ecology After the Anthropocene
House of Electronic Arts Basel

Aug 25 – Nov 25. 2018
EXHIBITION / Gustafsson&Haapoja
And Tomorrow And
Index Gallery, Stockholm

Aug 16. 2018
TALK
Turner Contemporary, UK

Jul 14 – Sept 1. 2018
EXHIBITION
You Are Just a Piece of Action – Works from the Miettinen Collection
Salon Dalhman, Berlin

Jun 26 – Aug 17. 2018
EXHIBITION
The Shores of the World (communality and interlingual politics)
Display gallery, Prague

Jun 18. 2018
Keynote Lecture
InSEA Congress, Aalto University, Helsinki

May 25 – Sep 30. 2018
EXHIBITION / The Archive of Nonhumanity / Gustafsson&Haapoja
Animals and Us
Turner Contemporary, UK

April 27. 2018
TALK
Why Do Animal Studies Now
Conference, Chicago

April 20.2018
TALK
Queens College, Social Practice Queens, New York

Feb 11. 2018
DISCUSSION
Unlearning Dystopias – Ecotopia
Art in General, New York

Jan 27. 2018
SYMPOSIUM
Beyond Binaries – Towards New Constructs of Personhood and Gender
ISCP New York

Nov 11.2017
TALK
SLSA Conference Out of Time
Arizona Stte University, Phoenix

Sept 22-23. 2017
SOLO EXHIBITION AND BOOK PREVIEW
ANTI-Festival, Kuopio

Sept 11- Dec 23. 2017
EXHIBITION
Gravitation
Salon Dalhman, Berlin

Jun 16- Jul 10. 2017
SOLO EXHIBITION
Museum of Nonhumanity
Santarcangelo Festival, Italy

Jun 16 – Oct 1. 2017
EXHIBITION
Museum of Nonhumanity
Momentum Biennale, Norway

Jun 3 – Sept 3. 2017
SOLO EXHIBITION
Closed Circuit – Open Duration
Chronus Art Center, Shanghai

Jun 3. 2017
TALK
Chronus Art Center, Shanghai

Mar 6. 2017
BOOK LAUNCH
Next Helsinki – Public Alternatives to Guggeheim’s Model of Culture Driven Development
Institute for Public Knowledge, NYU, New York

Nov 2. 2016 – Jan 27. 2017
EXHIBITION
Animal Mirror
ISCP New York

Oct 14 – 16. 2016
TALK
Creative Time Summit DC

Sept 1-30. 2016
SOLO EXHIBITION
Gustafsson&Haapoja: Museum of Nonhumanity
Helsinki

Haastattelu: Maailma on Eläinten työllä rakennettu
Eläinoikeusakatemia, 2024

“We Belong to the Microbes”
Ferment Radio, 2023

In the Studio: Terike Haapoja
Collectors Agenda, 2020
Text Rasmus Kyllönen

‘Art as a practice of vulnerability’
– A Conversation with Terike Haapoja of the artist duo Gustafsson & Haapoja
Metropolis M, 27.01.2021. Text Alice Smits

Interspecies Politics, Animality and Silence
Terike Haapoja and Pablo José Ramírez in conversation
In: Infrasonica, April 2020

Witnessing Mortality
– On Duration, Being-With and the Anthropocene
Heather Davis in conversation with Terike Haapoja
In: Vulnerability, Animality, Community (Garret, 2020)

HD: How did you come to work on these subjects and themes, of animals and natureculture and mortality?

TH: I grew up in the countryside where I was completely immersed in a natural environment that was inhabited by all kinds of species. When I started to work with art I always had an issue with visual representations as two dimensional images, because I felt that a kind of spatial material connect- edness to my surroundings was far more accurate a reflection of how I actually experienced reality. At some point I then discovered imaging technologies such as the infrared camera, and that was the first media that I somehow got, because it reveals its quality as a mediator. You can’t look through it; instead you face a very material surface that’s translating the reality outside your senses. So the question of how we know the world through these sensory interfaces was already there. Entropy was the first video work I made with this technology. I still feel it’s really important to me.

A more personal path to that work is that there was a death in my family at the time and I felt an urgency to deal with the experience. Through this work I tried to understand this process of someone being a subject and transforming into being an object, without anything visible changing, a process that is almost incomprehensible to us, and to make it tangible.

I think these two approaches, the formal and the personal opened a door to a lot of things that then followed, that had to do with how to interpret external reality and how to engage with the world beyond our experiences or beyond our understanding through these technologies, but also with how our connection to the world is deeply human in that it is emotional and personal, too.

HD: I was looking back through your work and reading this beautiful book, which is actually a long conversation between Donna Haraway and Thyrza Nichols Goodeve. In it Donna Haraway says: “From my point of view the affirmation of dying seems absolutely fundamental. Affirmation not in the sense of glorifying death, but in the sense – to put it bluntly – that without mortality we’re nothing. In other words the fantasy of transcend- ing death is opposed to everything I care about.”1 And I think that this really resonates with your work, especially with your earlier work includ- ing Entropy, The Present, Community and Inhale – Exhale as well as the fetus images in Mind Over Matter Over Mind.

There is something really interesting about the ways in which you are taking up the processes of mortality. You require the viewer to actually sit and be with the creature who is losing heat, who is going through this process of death. I was really intrigued when I noticed that both Entropy and In and Out of Time are long: In and Out of Time is four and an half hours and Entropy is 25 minutes. Even 25 minutes is fairly long for a gallery piece. It’s a long amount of time for an audience member to sit and be with the work. But I think there’s something really important about that length of time. It forces this kind of witnessing and asks of the viewer to be in a temporal space that’s more akin to the reality of death, even though both of those pieces are still really sped up. There’s something about the fact of the works’ duration that I think is really important in terms of witnessing mortality.

TH: The shooting of those pieces have always been like wakes beside the bodies I’m with. It was important for me to repeat that process in the work. I think that a very core function of art is to provide interfaces through which we can be in relation to that which we cannot understand. In that sense it has to do with spirituality. I’m not religious, but I think these metaphors or these symbolic spaces allow us to form a relation to something we cannot ever rationally or cognitively understand – things such as the disappearance of subjectivity, which we can never really experience.

HD: It is hard not to see these works without thinking of the ongoing massive extinctions of plants, animals and human entangled ways of life. The extinction of a species is often visualized not as the death of a particular individual, but as the disappearance of a mass, a genus. And what I like about your approach to this topic is the way you’re asking the viewer to be witness to the death of a particular creature. I realize that some of the infrared works aren’t necessarily directly related to the theme of extinction, but Community, which is kind of an amalgamation of much of the infrared works, is. When you’re asking the viewer to witness the transformation of a creature from subjectivity to a community of bacteria and other creatures that start taking hold of a body after it’s no longer its own… there is some- thing about being with an individual that I think implicates the viewer in a different way than witnessing something en mass.

TH: I think forming emotional connection is necessary – I don’t know if you can say it’s necessary in order to evoke action. It’s not action that I try to evoke with my work directly, especially not with these works, but rather some kind of emotional connection that’s related to one’s own body and one’s own life experience as a being. It’s not anthropomorphization, it’s more a realization of the fact that we are bodily and that is what we share.

HD: The way that you approach these questions of mortality and the limits of knowledge, and the cyclical nature of time are infused with a lot of ethics, and Emmanuel Levinas’ thinking in particular. You even cite him when you say, in relation to The Presence: “The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas describes the inner sense of time as a foundation of an ethical encounter. The other is not merely an object in my time, she or he also has a past and a future that are not accessible to me.” The passage from life to death in a lot of ways is the passage from being in time to no longer being in time, to not being bound by the passage of time. I think that there’s also a way in which you ask the viewer to just be in this durational moment with another creature. Despite the fact that Levinas never extends his ethics to other creatures I think there’s something about the ways in which he conceptualizes ethics that seems to inform so much of your work.

TH: His ideas have been important, especially exactly those parts of his think- ing about time. Another book that affected me a lot back when I started my studies was Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida. It’s kind of an art school cliché. But it contains the kind of analysis of a medium that is about our existential being in the world that I felt I could relate to as an artist. He doesn’t just provide a semiotic theory, but opens up this space where it becomes visible how meanings are bound to our emotional, human exis- tence in the world. Through my early experiences of nature I’ve gained a very strong sense that this kind of being in the world is something that exists for all life forms, not just for humans.

HD: In “Involutionary Momentum” scholars Natasha Myers and Carla Hustak talk about orchids and Darwin, and the ways in which Darwin had to embody the movements of an insect in order to get the orchids to react. There’s a communicational system that is real amongst all kinds of non-human crea- tures, including plants, where they can warn other plants about the infesta- tion of particular insects and alter their bodily chemistry in order to get rid of insects that might be feeding on them. There’s such an amazing respon- siveness and a kind of knowledge about the world in them that it’s hard to think that the ways in which we use language are exceptional.

TH: The exhibition Closed Circuit – Open Duration was really a manifestation of the idea that when beings are born into time they are also born into mean- ings and meaningfulness. There was one work that was not really an inde- pendent piece but it was still very important for me to include in the exhibi- tion. The work consists of a video animation of a quote from the book Writing by Marguerite Duras. In that particular chapter she is trying to describe witnessing the death of a fly. It’s as if she’s trying to access that experience through language, and even if it’s impossible it is still a trial to bring meanings into a shareable form. I wanted to address this aspect of existence also, and not just our material connectedness. Natural sciences work so much on a reductionist basis where everything you can measure is pulled into the cumulative system of knowledge. And I feel that’s also one reason why, even though there is a danger of anthropomorphization, it is still very important to address the subjective and the particular, too.

HD: Bruno Latour has talked a lot throughout his career about the liveliness of the ways in which scientists describe the creatures that they’re work- ing with. Despite the fact that there is this tendency, within a Western scientific epistomology, to say that this or that is just an automatic response, in the writing of the scientific documents there are moments where the liveliness of the world betrays the impulse to scientific objectivism. For Latour there’s always a tension in scientific work between those two modalities. I think a lot of scientists, especially biologists or ethologists study what they do because of the fact that they are deeply attached to these creatures or plants.

Philosopher of science Vinciane Despret describes the ways in which the creatures that scientists are working with have meaning systems and have their own schematics of interpretation. Lab rats, for example, are actually interpreting what you are doing to them, and have their own meaning systems around what the experiments are. But they can get bored and start to be uncooperative, so coming up with better scientific results is about develop- ing a relationship with an animal. In the case of Darwin and his orchids, he’s developing a relationship with an orchid while trying to figure out what an orchid will respond to and what an orchid won’t respond to. It actually requires that kind of deep engagement that I think necessarily has to also be emotional, even if in the scientific literature that part often gets taken out.

Could you describe what it was like to put together the Closed Circuit – Open Duration show and your collaboration with the scientists?

TH: I had been working with infrared and ultrasound imaging technologies in the works that dealt with disappearance and death and that which is beyond life. Then I started to think that I want to use these scientific media as interfaces between organic processes that you usually see as somehow inert or dead – which of course they are not – and to allow for a real-time ethical relationship with the work and the viewer to take place. I started to work on this exhibition in 2007, and at that time there was not that much discourse around these issues. I first exhibited this show in 2008, and updated the work for the Venice Biennale in 2013.

During the initial research I found these incredible people from Helsinki University, such as ecologist Eija Juurola and engineer Toivo Pohja, who has been hand-building measuring devices for Helsinki University’s Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station for decades. It was fascinating to see how, for exam- ple, research on the carbon cycle is conducted through these small scale experiments where they measure the fixing of carbon from a single branch of a tree, and then make this huge generalization of that data. Science is so much about making generalizations. In that sense, the particular tree func- tions merely as a foundation from which that general knowledge is then extracted. I, in contrast, was interested in the particular experience of a particular tree, because our common sense experience of trees is that they are individuals like us.

The same is true with the work Inhale – Exhale. I ran into this concept of soil respiration that is used in forestry research for describing the process of decomposing, and how in that process carbon is released back into the atmosphere. I found that notion extremely poetic. I started to think of carbon flow and of the fact that we are stardust, as Joni Mitchell puts it. I am part of the carbon cycle and my mortality is a by-product of that cycle. But what my mortality means to me is not something scientific, but very personal. So I created this sculpture that would offer a way of internalizing what the carbon flow means for us as humans, that would include the sceintific reading as well.

HD: There’s something that I have be interested in lately, which is that our imaginations are increasingly framed by the figure of the molecular. We think about gender in relation to how much estrogen or testosterone we have in our body, we think about the climate through how much carbon or methane is there. I think one of the reasons there is a lack of action around things like climate change is that when you say carbon and methane, or talk through the figure of the molecule, it’s such an abstract thing. I think that what is really interesting about Inhale – Exhale and Dialogue is the ways in which you develop a personal relationship to a molecule. In doing that you actually show how it’s not just about this molecule, but that we’re connected through this cycle of decay. I find it a really potent image. It is anthropomorphizing to a certain degree, but I think that it has to be; we are human after all. There are limits to our understanding.

The early 20th century biologist Jakob von Uexküll describes the way in which each species has its own world. In Uexküll’s thinking species’ worlds overlap, but they remain distinct. The idea of there being one world is thus false: there’s actually multiple worlds that co-exist side-by-side, intertwined and entangled. Humans live in a world that’s particular to us, because of the ways in which we are able to sense and perceive our environment. Each creature has its own world, and it’s important to recognize that we are not going to be able to move out of our own sensoriums completely. However, I often think of trying to see or feel through other creature’s sensations is a kind of active empathy. This is what a lot of our technologies allow us to do – to extend our sensorium. I also think that that is what your work asks us to do, to make connections with plants and animals on an emotional scale that are enabled through the apparatus of technology and art. I realize that there is a danger in this move, a danger of subsuming the other into the self, but it’s also about trying to find a connection, a shared meaning or commu- nication. And it’s clear, from anyone who has ever paid attention, that it is quite possible to communicate across species.

HD: There seems to be a difference between some of your earlier work, like the Closed Circuit – Open Duration exhibition, and all the earlier infrared works, and the newer works which are more directly political, like the work by Gustafsson&Haapoja and also The Party of Others. What sparked you to make that kind of turn in your work, or do you see a continuity?

TH: It’s kind of continuous. After working on the Closed Circuit – Open Duration exhibition I started to feel, again, frustrated by the limits of working in the white cube and making these prototypes of theory. The whole exhibition was a manifestation of my world view in a way, a manifestation of what I thought of as an intertwined, more ethical relationship with the non-human world and our own mortality. I do think that the kind of poetics that these works hopefully can put into play is affecting people and has a political effect.

But if you think about what actually defines our relationship with the non-hu- man world, it is the law and the way in which the non-human world is actually represented in our decision making processes. And then you can easily see that notions of nature-cultures or hybridity are absent from those structures that in practice define our possibilities to interact with the non-human world. It made sense to look to legislation and parliamentary decision-making processes as sites where nature is really created as “the other”. Because that’s how it is: everything in nature is still considered to be a legal object, whereas almost everything human-made is considered to be a legal person. So I started to look into what it would look like if we brought these radical thoughts into the realm of decision-making. In that sense The Party of Others is a continuation of that line of thought. It’s a utopian project and a platform for thinking of what could be an utopian model of governance where everybody would be represented equally. Of course it’s a way of showing the limitations of representational democracy: a way of demonstrating how the core structures of our society are based on exclusion and how the idea of inclusion is not compatible with the basic idea which is essentially premised on the division between humans and nonhumans. It was a way of looking at how these theories actually radical- ize our whole notion of the state and the nation state, and the way we govern our reality at the moment.

HD: When you staged the participatory performance The Trial, what were the arguments that were given and how did the jury members react?

TH: The Trial was a play. We had actors who performed the parts and a script,

the rights of nature into our legal apparatus. I do think that law is a kind of ultimate reality-creating interface. Art is always somehow distanced from reality and everything you do in art becomes a representation. The only place where you can actually make reality is if you make laws. Because that’s where reality is somehow affected directly or created. The Trial was an attempt trial to show how, if you actually have a different kind of a matrix, a different kind of vocabulary through which you have to make the verdicts, how it actually would change our practical reality. I’m continuing this line of thought through a new project called the Transmodern-Modern Dictio- nary, which is a spin off from The Party of Others project and aims at introducing more ecocentric concepts to Western legislation through collaboration with Indigenous language groups. I do feel that I approach law exactly the same way as I approach an infrared camera: it’s a very material medium that somehow allows us to be in a relationship with the outside world.

HD: I was just reading about the Transmodern-Modern Dictionary. The new concepts that are used in workshops to rewrite selected passages of relevant local legislation in order to demonstrate how ideas really change political reality is a really brilliant intervention. It highlights the way in which the law itself is a representative medium and how people – judges and lawyers and legislators – are interpreting it constantly. So there’s always this process of representation and interpretation which is happening. The idea of changing the language to demonstrate how that would force a shift in policy is such an interesting idea, because it really ties in with notions of performativity of language itself and how that performativity is so mate- rial.

TH: We’ve worked very closely with the local community and have tried to be conscious about not just going somewhere and extracting some kind of artistic content from the local people. It’s more of a platform than an art work, though there is this poetic element of translation that I’m really interested in: How to translate thoughts between languages and between cultures, from non-human realities to this very human construct of law. I feel that my expertise is in tweaking that part, which is something that the activists or the legal scholars won’t be focusing on.

TH: Back when I started to work on these issues over ten years ago, the scene was very marginal. The mainstream art world really didn’t talk about these issues: definitely not about animals, but not even about the Anthropocene or climate crises. All of that was introduced later, in 2006 or 2007. How do you see the whole discourse around the Anthropocene and the booming of all these themes in the arts in recent years?

HD: I feel that it’s so present in art and contemporary theory simply because we can no longer ignore it. It’s not that in the early 2000s things were sig- nificantly better, but I think that there’s just a growing realization of the situation of ecological crisis. We are now seeing the immediate effects of climate change in a very real way, and are living through the sixth mass extinction event. So ecology becomes an important thing even to people who might not be drawn to these themes otherwise. Philosopher Isabelle Stengers talks about the ways in which “Gaia intrudes,” and I think that this is precisely what’s happening. Gaia is intruding on our imaginaries and our world – on the climatical world, environmental world, social world, on our political worlds. For me, the fact that artists are taking this up is a really good thing.

Even if it’s incredibly important for there to be political action, I also think it’s important for us to grapple emotionally and psychically with what is happening. Art is one of the best places to do that, because it holds a space where you can have what media theorist and curator Joanna Zylisnka has called an “a-moral response”. She doesn’t mean it in a sense of immoral, but in the sense of a space that can be held together in contradiction, a space of contested realities. I think that in order for us to really begin to imagine the world that is going to be confronting us, we need to have a plurality of vision. For me art is one of the best places to do that.

TH: It took, depending on how you count it, 400 or 2000 or 10 000 years (laughs) for us to get into this mess. It’s going to take a while for the paradigm to actually change. It’s not going to be over in the next 50 years. Collective thinking is slow. In that sense I feel that I can try to be rigorous in this tiny little space I have. It can effect change only so far, but we can still think that we are part of a bigger wave and that maybe in 100 years or 150 years it will have achieved something. For me this is a good way of not becoming desperate, but also of not freeing me from responsibility. It gives me a place of relief, personally, where I still can be satisfied with doing what I do, and feel that if I can just do the tasks at hand well, that’s enough.

HD: There’s something good in thinking about these kinds of time scales, and

in the long duration and being-with quality of your work–of certain videos, like Entropy, but also in terms of projects like The Party of Others and Transmodern – Modern Dictionary. They are taking that long view. Under- standing oneself as just a small part of a much larger system is helpful in terms of orienting ourselves to a much longer term politics. There is a necessity in thinking about political action as sustainable, sustaining over a long period of time.

TH: I do think it’s important. I was just talking with my father, who is a sculptor. My childhood home is in the woods, and that surrounding has affected both of us very deeply. He said that that presence of that forest is so important to him because it constantly reminds him of eternity, in that silent indifferent way that nature does. And that for him art is a way of managing his relation to that eternity. It’s a very beautiful way of putting it and I can relate to that.

HD: I love the expression “the silent indifference of nature.” I think that’s something that’s important to keep in mind, when dealing with all these other questions.

TH: I think that’s a good place to stop.

–

Heather Davis is an assistant professor of Culture and Media at Eugene Lang College, The New School. As an interdisciplinary scholar working in environmental humanities, media studies, and visual culture, she is interested in how the saturation of fossil fuels has shaped contemporary culture. Her recent book, Plastic Matter (Duke 2022), argues that plastic is the emblematic material of life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, showing how intimately oil has coated nearly every fabric of being, how the synthetic cannot be disentangled from the natural, and how a generalized toxicity is producing queer realities. She is a member of the Synthetic Collective, an interdisciplinary team of scientists, humanities scholars, and artists, who investigate and make visible plastic pollution in the Great Lakes. She is the co-editor of Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies (Open Humanities Press, 2015) and editor of Desire Change: Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada (MAWA and McGill Queen’s UP, 2017).