NOVEMBER
27.11.2018
I received the 2018 State Art Award in visual art by the Arts Promotion Center Finland and was invited to give a thank you speech on the behalf of all awarded. The speech will be published on the 100 puheenvuoroa taiteesta website by the Arts Promotion Center Finland.
22.11.2018, 2pm, UZH, Deutsches Seminar, Schönberggasse 9, SOD-1-104, Zurich
I will be giving a public lecture Artistic Renegotiations of Archive, Memory & Place at the University of Zurich as part of the Postcolonial Studies & Collective Memory Courses lead by Professor Dr. Ana Sobral.
OCTOBER
26.10.2018, Design Museum Helsinki, FI
Public talk as part of the Creative Mornings talk series with the global theme of 'honesty'. I spoke about my art practice in relation to dishonest history.
SEPTEMBER
11.9.2018, Valkoinen Sali, Helsinki, FI
I participate in the annual Helsinki Design Week PechaKucha Night 2018 and introduce Petri Saarikko and my long-term project Remedies which we have initiated in 2010-11 and have since made versions in seven countries around the world.
AUGUST
16.8.2018 at 6pm, Turku Art Museum
Welcome to my artist talk at the Space Race exhibition joined by astronomer and writer Esko Valtaoja.
2.8.2018 at 6pm, Former Faculty of Biology, Riga Biennial
"Healer in a Pot" Symposium is part of our Remedies Latvia project commissioned by the Riga Biennial.
In collaboration with houseplant exchange project Mājas svētība (Laura Ziemele & Renāte Pablaka) invites you to participate in healing plant symposium on August 2, at 6 pm next to the Former Faculty of Biology (Kronvalda bulvaris 4).
Artists welcome you to bring your home plants for exchange and reflect on most typical domestic plants and their potential medicinal uses from two perspectives: between factual and mythical. The soil and pots for the plans will be provided.
The symposium special guests:Maija Dambrova – doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Head of the Pharmacological Pharmacology Laboratory at the Institute of Organic Synthesis, specialized in the characteristics of indoor plants from a phytochemistry perspective
Inga Sīle – pharmacist, doctor at the Riga Stradiņš University Pharmacy who will speak about the plants most often included in the traditional latvian beliefs, paying particular attention to indoor plants
'Dziedināšana Remedies' is an artistic research project, by Sasha Huber and Petri Saariko focusing on expanding contemporary forms and related practices, which manifests as a publication, commissioned by RIBOCA. Since 2011, the project explores methods of self-help and medical healing in different geographical and cultural contexts. Remedies has taken different form of expression such as live performance and video around the world in Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Haiti, Russia, Germany and Tasmania.
Free admission
JULY
29.7.2018, 2-4pm, Gallery ForumBox, Helsinki, FI
Welcome to the Finissage of our video exhibition Black Lives Matter at the MediaBox which is curated by Av-Arkki.
25.7.2018, 1.30pm, Gallery ForumBox, Helsinki, Fi
Welcome to the guided tour as part of the Helsinki Art Walk arranged by MUU gallery in Helsinki
14.7.2018, St. Martin, Calveisenthal, GL
Welcome to the opening of TEKTONIK - traveling exhibition as part of the 10th anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Tectonic Arena Sadona curated by Johannes M Hedinger. In collaboration with Demounting Louis Agassiz campaign founder Hans Fässler, I developed one of the twenty artistic positions around the topic of mountains, orogeny and tectonics which provide different, partly new and unconventional views of the Sardona World Heritage Site and the phenomena that characterize it. Our project Geology holds risks - from Engi (GL) to Harvard (USA) is located at the Martinsmad Hütte at 2020 meters a.s.l. which we installed personally on 8.7. https://tektonik.ch
12.7.2018, 7-11pm, ZH/U-Center for Art and Urbanistics's Speisekino, Berlin Biennial, DE
Berlin Biennial artist and curator Christopher Cozier hosted a video screening night as part of the I'm Not Who You Think I'm Not series at the ZK/U-Center for Art and Urbanistics. More
JUNE
29.6.2018, 6pm, Gallery Augusta, HIAP, Suomenlinna, FI
Curator and writer Adwait Singh invited our Remedies Mildura video work to his one day exhibition SABBAT:00 as end result of his residency with HIAP during this summer.
11.–12.6.2018, Autograph, London, UK
My 3rd participation to BE.BOP (Black Europe Body Politics), the biennial conference between two cities curated by Alanna Lockward.
I take part in the panel: The Commons of Struggle / The Common Struggle?
With: Robbie Shilliam, Gurminder Bhambra, Sasha Huber, Sophie Maríñez. Moderated by Alanna Lockward
This panel will present various takes on colonial legacies and how they inform the present. From Britain’s fantasy of the old colonial empire, reflected in recent Brexit debates, to Decolonial literature and poetry that celebrates a legacy of solidarity between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, against dominant readings of historiographies.
Panelists will discuss various methods and strategies to excavate and make visible long and forgotten histories of Decolonial aesthesis.
About BE.BOP 2018: COALITIONS FACING WHITE INNOCENCE, tackles once again central questions on Black European citizenship within global affairs. By incorporating a variety of disciplines and approaches – art, science, film, performance, activism – BE.BOP directly confronts colonial legacies and continuities with artistic strategies that enable the retelling of such violent histories. Grounded in the contributions of Decolonial Aesthetics, this year’s edition takes up the concept of “White Innocence”, coined by influential Caribbean Diaspora thinker Gloria Wekker in order to make visible the continuing inequalities caused by colonial modernity.
MAI
25.5.2018, 10:00
Giving a keynote at the Kiertoliike 2018 seminar in Tampere. I gave a short interview here.
3.5.2018, 18:00
The Vantaa Art Museum Artsi organized a discussion with former president of Finland Tarja Halonen and me as part of the exhibition PAX - Let's talk about peace!. The event was moderated by Abdirahim ”Husu” Hussein.
MARCH
23.–26.3.2018, Spazio Cerere, Rome
I join the group exhibition Transizioni e passaggi curated by Hanna Laakso, Krista Mikkola and Riikka Vainio at the gallery Spazio Cerere in Rome. Review in Finnish on Musekala blog by Paola Brigaglia here.
23.3.2018, Riga, LV
With Petri Saarikko I am delighted to join RIBOCA1 - 1st Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Riga, Latvia from 2. June until 28. October 2018. The biennial is curated by Katerina Gregos and the full artist list can be viewed from the official website and from the article on Artnews.
4.3.2018, 12:00h, "Burg Hüsli", Leukerbad, CH
In honor of James Baldwin and his time spent in Switzerland, I portrayed him as part of my ongoing series "The Firsts", being the first black guest at the little village of Leukerbad in the Valais Alps in Switzerland in between 1951-53. His partner at the time, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger, invited him to his family house there to focus on completing his first novel "Go Tell it on the Mountain".
After visiting the village myself for the first time in autumn 2016 to find the chalet he lived in, I met the owner of the house and asked if I could memorialize James Baldwin on one of the window shutters in his honor and of the time he spent in the house and village. He agreed! I then contacted the Baldwin Estate in New York City to share my idea and got their blessing, too! I returned to Leukerbad during the last holiday season and was able to take the shutter away with me, and I made the work at my studio in Helsinki. I stapled the portrait based on a drawing of James made of many of his photos and films – he even bought the woolen pullover he is wearing in Leukerbad.
On February 23, I spoke about and revealed the work at the conference "The evidence of things not seen" – Queering Europe with James Baldwin at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and will permanently install the public artwork on Sunday, 4.3. at 12:00h together with the chalet owners Family Bittel. The happening is public and everybody is welcome.
FEBRUARY
22.–23.2.2018, Bern, CH
I'm pleased to participate in the conference “The evidence of things not seen” – Queering Europe with James Baldwin organized by the Interdisciplinary Center for Gender Studies ICFG, University of Bern. More coming soon.
JANUARY
29.1.2018, 12:00-1:15 pm, Scribbs College, Boone Recital Hall, Claremont
I was invited to give an public artist talk at the Scribbs College and continued discussion at Professor Myriam J. A. Chancy's Caribbean Literature and Postcolonial Studies class.
24.1.2018, 7:00-8:30 pm, MOLAA - Museum of Latin American Art
I was invited to give an public artist talk at the MOLAA as part of their new lecture series The Integration of Art & Science in Effecting Social Change while the group exhibition Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago by Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA curated by Tatiana Flores is still running until 28.2.2018. My travels were made possible by the Arts Promotion Center Finland.