Newsletter 
A I S T I T / coming to our senses awakens our awareness with an invitation for corporeal empathy
Four Finnish cultural institutes, together with the Helsinki Festival, will bring the contemporary visual and performance art project A I S T I T / coming to our senses to Kunsthalle Helsinki. The participating artists consistently base their work on sensory perception, with an invitation to relate to the surrounding world reciprocally.
The exhibition consists of works where corporeality, intimacy, vulnerability, and connection communicate to collectively ask: How can we be in touch with others? In addition to observations and sensations, A I S T I T offers a route to bodily empathy. The works included in the exhibition arouse a compassionate and conscientious relationship with other sentient beings and environments. The project’s works place footholds in Kunsthalle Helsinki as well as in the cityscape by the Töölönlahti Bay and the cultural centre Stoa.
Kunsthalle Helsinki will feature sculptures, photography, drawings, installations, videos, and a performance. Anna Maria Häkkinen and Maija Mustonen’s performance Treat examines the concept of a touch that nurtures. Four of the works included in A I S T I T / coming to our senses are commissioned ones, such as Dafna Maimon’s crawling out of the cavities of the body in Leaky Tooth, Terike Haapoja’s multi-level examination combining ecological and social analysis, and the sonic installation Weaving, yearning by Kalle Nio and Hans Rosentröm which leads listeners from the Kunsthalle towards the nearby Temppeliaukio hill at sunset. . Other new works include a participation from Axel Antas, as well as the collaboration by Etel Adnan and Simone Fattal, titled Five Senses for One Death. A poem in seven pieces. The work commissioned from Kid Kokko, Disappearing – passion, will be performed at the cultural centre Stoa from 1–5 September.
The exhibition at Kunsthalle Helsinki is part of a wider project presented in phases in Paris, London, Berlin, Helsinki, and Ghent in 2021 and 2022. Most of the works seen in Helsinki will have been presented in Paris, London, and Berlin in Spring 2021. The organisers of the international collaboration are four Finnish cultural institutes: the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland, the Finnish Institute in France, and the Finnish Institute in Germany. Choreographer-curator Satu Herrala and visual artist Hans Rosenström act as the curators of the project.
Artists:
Etel Adnan & Simone Fattal, Axel Antas, Terike Haapoja, Anna Maria Häkkinen & Maija Mustonen, Kapwani Kiwanga, Dominique Knowles, Kid Kokko, Minna Långström, Dafna Maimon, Kalle Nio & Hans Rosenström, Laure Prouvost, Monira Al Qadiri, and Kati Roover.
The exhibition is supported by the French institut in Finland